Mafia probed for selling nuclear waste

[Lone_Star_Dem]

Source: UPI

ROME, Oct. 9 (UPI) -- Italian federal officials have launched an investigation into allegations a Mafia clan trafficked in and illegally disposed of nuclear waste 20 years ago.

The claims came from an informant who turned on the 'Ndrangheta clan, based in Calabria, a correspondent for England's The Guardian newspaper reported from Rome.

At least 10 people are being investigated, including former officials with the country's state energy research agency, Enea.

An Enea manager allegedly paid the clan to get rid of 600 drums of toxic and radioactive waste from Italy, Switzerland, France, Germany and the United States, with its eventual dumping in Somalia, the report said.


Read more: http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Top_News/2007/10/09/mafia_probed_for_selling_nuclear_waste/1424/

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From cocaine to plutonium: mafia clan accused of trafficking nuclear waste

The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,2186640,00.html

An Enea manager is said to have paid the clan to get rid of 600 drums of toxic and radioactive waste from Italy, Switzerland, France, Germany, and the US, the turncoat claimed, with Somalia as the destination lined up by the traffickers.

But with only room for 500 drums on a ship waiting at the northern port of Livorno, 100 drums were secretly buried somewhere in the southern Italian region of Basilicata. Clan members avoided burying the waste in neighbouring Calabria, said the turncoat, because of their "love for their home region", and because they already had too many kidnap victims hidden in grottoes there.

Investigators have yet to locate the radioactive drums allegedly buried in Basilicata - although, in a parallel investigation, police are searching for drums of non-radioactive toxic waste they believe were dumped by the 'Ndrangheta near the Unesco town of Matera in Basilicata, famous for its ancient houses dug into the rock, the Ansa news agency reported yesterday.

Shipments to Somalia, where the waste was buried after buying off local politicians, continued into the 1990s, while the mob also became adept at blowing up shiploads of waste, including radioactive hospital waste, and sending them to the sea bed off the Calabrian coast, the turncoat told investigators. Although he made no mention of attempted plutonium production, Il Giornale newspaper wrote that the mobsters may have planned to sell it to foreign governments.

[kestrel91316]

1. This is why I am opposed to switching over to nuclear power.

Because the waste WILL be mishandled. Count on it.

[Chemical Bill]

3. Oh no, nukular power is safe.

:sarcasm:

[Sirveri]

4. It could be reused and reprocessed.

But we have laws on the books preventing us from doing that. 4th generation liquid salt reactor designs actually reprocess while generating power and can be refueled on the fly. There is also a chance that they can effectivly use the transuranic cycle. There is also the energy potential from the untapped and unused Thorium fuel cycle which would turn India into a major energy powerhouse, if we would bother to reserach it.

But I guess people would rather turn to coal when the oil starts getting really expensive. We need energy, I don't see it coming from wind and solar any time soon.

[WCGreen]

2. Badda Bing...

It's waste, no?

That's our business, no?