U.S. Made Uranium Seized From Bus In West Bengal India
October 12, 2007 by national
Filed under Homeland Security News
A briefcase, apparently containing uranium that was manufactured in the United States, was seized from a bus in Birbhum district of West Bengal, India by customs officials.
News sources in India report that customs officials had been keeping a close watch on all buses running a specific, targeted route, after receiving a tip. On Thursday, at approximately 3:00am a Customs team intercepted the suspected bus and made the discovery.
Upon opening the briefcase, officers found the uranium, well wrapped in a 12 inch by 12 inch leather-type bag, with the words, “Uranium 100/100; code number 001, date of manufacture 1999, date of expiry 2023, weight 1 pound, made in USA”.
The bag was kept at an isolated place and later handed over to scientists from the Variable Energy Cyclotron Centre (VECC) in Kolkata, local reports here said.
There were 35 passengers on board when the bus was intercepted. They all disembarked and dispersed. No one took the suitcase with them. Customs officials have detained the driver and the conductor for possible leads. During interrogation, they were unable to shed any light on who might have brought the suitcase into the bus.
Experts suspect the material found in the bag could be low-grade ore from which radioactive material could be extracted.
“It may not be processed uranium. It may be some other materials like pitchblende but we can only ascertain it after tests,” a VECC scientist said.
….and I suppose there was no list of passengers on that bus, if there had been, perhaps they would have been able to determine who brought that briefcase onto the bus.
GREAT job by the customs officials!!!
Suspected ,targeted, expected, watched and acted upon! But how come the custom officials and police let all the passengers go away and disappear into thin air without a thourough check ? Can anyone think of a more stupid action on the part of the custom officials unless there was a remote possibility of a collusion between some officials in authority letting all the passengers go and the actual perpetrators of the most heinous crime frought with such terrible dangers?
The authorities and powers that be, and themselves beyond suspicion and irreproachable integrity must investigate into the details of and report what actually happened.