Mexican Police Find Missing Containers Of Cobalt-60

While politicians continue to push for wars in places like Syria to stop the spread of weapons of mass destruction, they tend to ignore the much greater amounts of radioactive material available in this and neighboring countries at hospitals and other institutions. This week we saw just how easy it is to acquire such material capable of being used as a weapon. Thieves simply hijacked a truck with medical waste that would have allowed them to create a potent radioactive dirty bomb. It was a mistake and they likely paid for the mistake with their lives.

The carjackers jumped and beat the driver and his assistant in a Volkswagen truck on its way to a storage facility in Mexico.

Mexican police did a wide search and today the material was found outside of its container. The thieves probably had no idea what they had stolen and the police have concluded “They will, without a doubt, die.”

These thieves will die simply from coming into contact with the material. Consider what it could have meant if made into a direct bomb and spread over a wide area in a major city. Of course, dealing with this source of radioactive material is controversial and faces an army of lobbyists representing hospitals and businesses. However, with the proliferation of such machines in virtually every country, it is remarkably easy to gain access to such material for a terrorist organization with basic training for a dirty bomb.

Source: Washington Post