Mexico: Stolen radioactive material found
Mexican authorities said they'd found the stolen truck and at least some of the radioactive cobalt Wednesday in a remote area about 40 km (25 ...
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Stolen radioactive material recovered in Mexico; thieves said to be ...
In-Depth
(CNN) -- A pair of thieves in Mexico may have stolen more than they bargained for when they targeted a truck this week.
n radioactive material found
updated 7:58 PM EST, Wed December 4, 2013
Found: Stolen truck with nuclear load
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- NEW: The suspected thieves are still on the loose and could be sick
- NEW: Cleanup could take weeks, an official says
- The stolen truck has been found; it's unclear whether any cobalt is missing
- Experts say cobalt-60 can also be used to make a dirty bomb
The stolen vehicle was
carrying delicate cargo -- a radioactive element used for medical
purposes that also can be used to make a so-called dirty bomb.
Mexican authorities said they'd found the stolen truck and at least some of the radioactive cobalt Wednesday in a remote area about 40 km (25 miles) away from where it was taken.
But officials aren't sure
whether any of the cobalt is missing, said Juan Eibenschutz Hartman,
head of Mexico's National Commission for Nuclear Security and
Safeguards.
And the suspected thieves
are still on the loose, he said, though authorities expect they could
turn up at a clinic suffering symptoms of radiation exposure.
The container holding cobalt was found about a kilometer away from the truck and had been opened, he said.
Authorities are guarding
the area and have set up a 500-meter perimeter around it, Eibenschutz
said. They are evaluating whether any residents were exposed.
Cleaning up the area
could take weeks, he said, because they don't have robotic equipment
they would need to quickly collect the dangerous cobalt. They're coming
up with a plan and considering asking for help from the International
Atomic Energy Agency, the United States or Canada.
The IAEA announced the theft on Wednesday.
Mexican authorities told
the IAEA that the truck, which was transporting cobalt-60 from a
hospital in Tijuana to a radioactive waste storage center, was stolen
Monday in Tepojaco, near Mexico City.
An early theory is that the thieves were unaware of what exactly they had taken.
"At the time the truck
was stolen, the source was properly shielded," the IAEA said. "However,
the source could be extremely dangerous to a person if removed from the
shielding, or if it was damaged."
But Eibenschutz said the
truck wasn't properly set up to transport the radioactive material,
since it didn't have a GPS for tracking or other necessary equipment.
Cobalt-60 is used in
radiotherapy and in industrial tools such as leveling devices and
thickness gauges. Large sources of cobalt-60 are used to sterilize
certain foods, as the gamma rays kill bacteria but don't damage the
product, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
If released into the environment, the radioactive material can harm people.
And experts consider cobalt-60 one of the "candidates" for making dirty bombs.
Bombs made with
cobalt-60 "pose a threat mainly because even a fraction of a gram emits a
huge number of high-energy gamma rays; such material is harmful whether
outside or inside the body," according to a 2011 report by the
Congressional Research Service.
In a speech last year,
the IAEA director warned that such a dirty bomb "detonated in a major
city could cause mass panic, as well as serious economic and
environmental consequences."
Preliminary information
suggests that the thieves did not know what the truck's cargo was when
they stole it, said Jaime Aguirre Gomez, deputy director of radiological
security at the National Commission for Nuclear Security and
Safeguards.
The shielding that
protects the cobalt-60 is designed so that the radioactive source is
difficult to extract, Aguirre said. The casing is designed not to be
opened or perforated easily.
The truck and its cargo
went missing early Monday after the driver of the white 2007 Volkswagen
truck and an assistant had stopped to rest at a gas station, local
prosecutor Marcos Morales told CNN.
At around 1 a.m. Monday,
a man armed with a handgun knocked on the passenger window. When the
passenger rolled down his window, the gunman demanded the keys to the
vehicle, Morales said.
Both the driver and his
assistant were taken to an empty lot where they were bound and told not
to move. They heard one of the assailants use a walkie-talkie type
device or phone to tell someone, "It's done," Morales said.
Mexico alerted the IAEA to the theft, following international protocol, Aguirre said.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is assisting with the investigation into the stolen truck, Mexican authorities said.
The U.S. government has
sensors at border crossings and sea ports to prevent radioactive
materials from entering the country. This includes large stationary
sensors designed to scan vehicles going through land border crossings as
well as pager-size devices carried by agents.
Some of this equipment
is sensitive enough that it has been set off by people who had recently
undergone radiation therapy, according to a U.S. law-enforcement source.
According to the
Congressional Research Service report, in Thailand in 2000, a disused
cobalt-60 source was stored outdoors and bought by two scrap collectors,
who took it to a junkyard where it was cut open.
Some workers suffered
burn-like injuries, and eventually three people died and seven others
suffered radiation injuries, the report says. Nearly 2,000 others who
lived nearby were exposed to radiation.
CNN's Fidel Gutierrez, Arthur Brice,
Catherine E. Shoichet, Carloo Perez, Evan Perez, Holly Yan and Christine
Theodorou contributed to this report.
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