Dose in Litvinenko would have cost £20m

[seemslikeadream]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/russia/article/0,,1962354,00.html

Litvinenko affair: now the man who warned him poisoned too


· 'Potentially fatal' level of polonium found in Italian
· Dose in Litvinenko would have cost £20m - expert

Ian Cobain, Ian Sample and Mark Rice-Oxley in Moscow
Saturday December 2, 2006
The Guardian


The unknown assassin who killed Alexander Litvinenko, the former Russian spy, appeared last night to have claimed a second victim after tests revealed that one of the dead man's associates had been poisoned with the same radioactive isotope, polonium-210.
Mario Scaramella was found to have ingested a potentially fatal dose of the substance and was being treated at a London hospital last night.

The Italian self-styled security consultant says he flew to London last month to warn Mr Litvinenko that both their lives were at risk. At a meeting at a West End sushi restaurant he claimed he gave the Russian a document which named five people on a hitlist allegedly drawn up by Russian intelligence officers.


Mr Scaramella's urine was tested after he returned to London this week following Mr Litvinenko's death. The Guardian has been told that the amount of polonium-210 found in the Russian's body could have killed him 100 times over, and would have cost as much as £20m to acquire.
Last night it emerged that Mr Litvinenko's wife, Marina, had also tested positive for polonium-210. Tests showed that she had ingested a small amount, which posed no immediate health risk and a "very small" long-term risk.

While the amount detected in Mr Scaramella's body is considerably less than was found in Mr Litvinenko's, it presents a grave threat to his health.

[seemslikeadream]

1. Erinys International Ltd.

Beyond the sushi bar, traces of radiation have been detected at several more sites, including Litvinenko's home, a hotel he visited, the offices of Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky and the offices of Erinys, a security and risk management company.

http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/europe/11/30/uk.spy.italian.reut/index.html

Erinys International Ltd. was established by ex-Apartheid era official Sean Cleary and Jonathan Garratt in 2002, and provides an array of services to the military-corporate-oil-spook-mafia complex.


A UK security firm linked to two of Britain's top ex-SAS men is at the centre of a prisoner 'abuse' row after photographs revealed employees interrogating a terrified Iraqi youth in a garage in Kirkuk. Pictures obtained by The Observer show two employees of Erinys restraining the 16-year-old Iraqi with six car tyres around his body. The photographs, taken last May, show the boy frozen with fear in a room where the wall appeared to be marked by bullet holes.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1350866,00.html


In Greek mythology, the Erinys were three goddesses, attendants of Hades and Persephone, who guarded the Underworld.

http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=8328

While the company does not appear in international business directories and is only a year old, its website names five managers and directors, but does not identify its ownership structure: most of whom have been affiliated with Armor Holdings, a Florida-based security company and Defence Systems Limited, a British company which merged with Armor in 1997.

A former British Special Air Services (SAS) officer, director Alastair Morrison was co-founder and CEO of Defence Systems from 1981 to 1999. Morrison is currently affiliated with Armor Holdings, in which he holds $2.1 million worth of stock. Fraser Brown, who directs Erinys' security operations, has worked for DSL/Armor since 1999. Jonathan Garratt, Erinys' managing director, has worked for DSL and Armor since 1992. The two other Erinys officials named on the website have no apparent ties to either company: Sean Cleary is a South African risk management expert while Bill Elder previously worked as Bechtel's corporate security manager.


* Security Services and Consultancy: The security division is directed by former senior members of the UK armed forces with extensive experience in providing security to the private sector with clients such as the UN, US and UK governments, the international petrochemical industry and commerce.
* Emergency Action Planning & Crisis Management: Assessments of potentially damaging scenarios.
* Specialist Manpower: Available for all levels of security, training and project management.
* Site Security: Consultancy, audits, provisions, training, personnel, and equipment
* Guard Force Management
* Transportation and Logistics Security: Extensive experience in airline, rail, sea and overland travel including high value goods and cash in transit.
* Human Resources: Specialist, managed manpower for support operations in remote sites<2>


http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Erinys_International_Ltd.


Chalabis:

Erinys Iraq

Erinys Iraq Ltd, which won an $80 million contract last August from the Coalition Provisional Authority to provide security for the oil infrastructure in Iraq, has had some powerful alliances in Iraq.

* Erinys set up a Joint Venture with Nour USA Ltd. which was incorporated in America in May '03. Nour's founder is Abul Huda Farouki, a wealthy Jordanian-American who lives in northern Virginia and whose companies have done extensive construction work for the Pentagon. Nour's website describes the company as a collaborative "arrangement" between HAIFinance, a Farouki family company, and a Jordanian venture called the Munir Sukhtan Group
* Farouki's businesses established $12 million of loans from the Petra International Banking Corporation in the 1980s, which was managed at the time by Ahmed Chalabi's nephew, Mohammed Chalabi. The Jordanian government says this was part of a massive embezzlement scheme involving Chalabi and a bank he owned in Jordan.
* A founding partner and the director of Erinys Iraq is Faisal Daghistani. Faisal is the son of Tamara Daghinstani who played a large role in the development of Ahmed Calabi's Iraqi National Congress
* The firm's cousel in Baghdad has been Chalabi's nephew, Salem Chalabi
* Many among the 14,000 guards recruited by Erinys to protect the oil infrastructure came directly from the Iraqi Free Forces, a militia that had been loyal to Chalabi's movement.

[1932]

5. Before reading this, if I had to bet, I would have said russian intelligence

did this with or without Putin's OK. But, if a private security firm was involved, I'm not so sure. Then it does sound like it could have been a set up. Then you have to wonder if it was done by, say, oil interests who want to make Putin look bad.

The questions would be: why a long, slow death of a very public person? To set an example? To make sure the media pays attention?

Did they know that the British would be able to trace the movement of the substance? Were they leaving red herrings, or will the routes revealed show the real assassins?

[originalpckelly]

9. No, I think that looks like we set them up...

or am I interpreting that wrong?

[Octafish]

6. Thanks for the Five-Star Post and Thread, seemslikeadream.

Poisoning a critic of Putin helps Putin's enemies more than Putin.

Berezovsky and the rest of the plutocratic-kleptocratic-kakistocratic Mafiya come to mind, including the Bush rep, Neil.



Rising of a New Man
1998
oil on canvas
48 X 24 inches
by Renata Palubinskas

http://regardfor.com/byrPal.html

[seemslikeadream]

7. Sir, I understand everything that deserves to be understood

:hug: :pals: :hug:





My future's so bright, I got to wear shades!

[eppur_se_muova]

31. That is one WIERD painting. Thanks for sharing. nt

[starroute]

33. More Erinys

http://www.alternet.org/story/18588/

Erinys Iraq, the subsidiary of Erinys International, was awarded a two-year, $80 million contract in August 2003 to protect 140 Iraqi oil installations. Erinys has been awarded subcontracts to protect American construction contractors, including Halliburton's subsidiary Kellogg, Brown and Root.


http://atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/FI24Ak01.html

According to an article in Newsday in February, the July 25, 2003, CPA solicitation for bids provided no details of what would be required to provide security for Iraq's "multibillion-dollar oil infrastructure". It did, however, ask that the bidder submit "a list of five contracts of the same or similar type to demonstrate previous experience". Yet Erinys had never handled a job as large and complicated as this one, and its partner firm, Nour, has never worked in the security area.


http://www.pacifica.org/programs/reportfromiraq/PacInIraq-20040422.html

But while ERINYS's employees toil for low wages, the company's financial health is hardly in doubt. In addition to an 80 million dollar contract to guard Iraq's oil infrastructure, ERINYS has also been hired to guard the petroleum infrastructure in Colombia and much of West Africa. ... It reportedly paid Iraqi National Congress chief Ahmed Chalabi 2 million dollars for his help in securing the Iraq contract.

[seemslikeadream]

42. more

:hi:

http://www.sandline.com/hotlinks/Economist-Baghdad.html



British companies have been grousing about losing out to the Americans in Iraq. But in one area, British companies excel: security

THE sight of a mob of Iraqi stone-throwers attacking the gates to the Basra palace where the coalition has its southern headquarters is no surprise. What's odd is the identity of the uniformed men holding them off. The single Briton prodding his six Fijians to stand their ground are not British army soldiers but employees of Global Risk Strategies, a London-based security company.

Private military companies (PMCs)—mercenaries, in oldspeak—manning the occupation administration's front lines are now the third-largest contributor to the war effort after the United States and Britain. British ones are popular, largely because of the reputation of the Special Air Service (SAS) regiment whose ex-employees run and man many of the companies. They maintain they have twice as many men on the ground as their American counterparts. According to David Claridge, managing director of Janusian, a London-based security firm, Iraq has boosted British military companies' revenues from £200m ($320m) before the war to over £1 billion, making security by far Britain's most lucrative post-war export to Iraq.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office has information on Britain’s role in Iraq. See also the Coalition Provisional Authority.


It's a lucrative business. A four-man ex-SAS team in Baghdad can cost $5,000 a day. Buoyed by their earnings, the comrades-in-arms live in the plushest villas in the plushest quarters of Baghdad. Their crew-cut occupants compare personal automatics, restock the bars and refill the floodlit pools of the former Baathist chiefs.

Established companies have expanded; new ones have sprung up. Control Risks, a consultancy, now provides armed escorts. It has 500 men guarding British civil servants. Global Risk Strategies was a two-man team until the invasion of Afghanistan. Now it has over 1,000 guards in Iraq—more than many of the countries taking part in the occupation—manning the barricades of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA). Last year it also won a $27m contract to distribute Iraq's new dinar. Erinys, another British firm, was founded by Alastair Morrisson, an ex-SAS officer who emerged from semi-retirement to win a contract with Jordanian and Iraqi partners to protect Iraq's oil installations. CPA officials say the contract is worth over $100m. Erinys now commands a 14,000-strong armed force in Iraq.

[Blue_Tires]

35. great info there

thanks

[mogster]

2. It would be interesting to know

How exactly the poison came into mr Litvinenko's body.
Where had he been before coming to the restaurant?

Several Norw. articles have mentioned testing of airplanes for poison:

Testing planes for radioactivity

This is the poison-planes

(...)
London Heathrow to Moskva/Moskva to London Heathrow
25. oktober, BA875
26. oktober, BA872 og BA873
28. oktober, BA872 og BA873
31. oktober, BA873, BA874 og BA875
1. november, BA874 og BA875
3. november, BA874 og BA875
5. november, BA872 og BA873
6. november, BA874 og BA875
7. november, BA872, BA873, BA874 og BA875
8. november, BA874 og BA875
9. november, BA872, BA873, BA874 og BA875
13. november, BA874 og BA875
14. november, BA872 og BA873
15. november, BA874 og BA875
16. november, BA872 og BA873
17. november, BA874 og BA875
18. november, BA874 og BA875
20. november, BA872 og BA873
22. november, BA872 og BA873
25. november, BA872 og BA873
28. november, BA872 og BA873
29. november, BA872

London Heathrow to Barcelona/Barcelona to London Heathrow
4. november, BA478 og BA479
16. november, BA478 og BA479
17. november, BA478 og BA479
19. november, BA478 og BA479
20. november, BA478 og BA479
21. november, BA478 og BA479
22. november, BA478 og BA479
23. november, BA478 og BA479
24. november, BA478 og BA479

London Heathrow to Dusseldorf/Dusseldorf to London Heathrow
30. oktober, BA936 og BA937
6.november, BA936 og BA937
8.november, BA936 og BA937
9.november, BA936 og BA937
11.november, BA936 og BA937
13.november, BA936 og BA937
18.november, BA936 og BA937
19.november, BA936 og BA937
24.november, BA936 og BA937
25.november, BA936 og BA937
27.november, BA936 og BA937

London Heathrow to Athen
30. oktober, BA632
31. oktober, BA634
4.november, BA632
5.november, BA634
6.november, BA632
7.november, BA634
8.november, BA632
9.november, BA634
10.november, BA632
11.november, BA632
14.november, BA634
19.november, BA632
20.november, BA634
21.november, BA632
22.november, BA634
24.november, BA632
25.november, BA632
27.november, BA632
28.november, BA632
28.november, BA634

Athen to London Heathrow
30. oktober, BA633
1.november, BA631
4.november, BA633
6.november, BA631
6.november, BA633
8.november, BA631
8.november, BA633
10.november, BA631
10.november, BA633
11.november, BA633
15.november, BA631
19.november, BA633
21.november, BA631
21.november, BA633
23.november, BA631
24.november, BA633
25.november, BA633
27.november, BA633
28.november, BA633
29.november, BA631

London Heathrow to Larnaca/Larnaca to London Heathrow
29. oktober, BA662 og BA663
11.november, BA662 og BA663
12.november, BA662 og BA663
13.november, BA662 og BA663
18.november, BA662 og BA663
26.november, BA662 og BA663

London Heathrow to Stockholm
3.november, BA786
19.november, BA780
22.november, BA780
23.november, BA780
24.november, BA780

Stockholm to London Heathrow
4.november, BA773
19.november, BA781
22.november, BA781
23.november, BA781
24.november, BA781

London Heathrow to Warsawa (operates to Vienna)
28.november, BA846

Warsaw to London Heathrow (operates from Vienna)
28.november, BA847

London Heathrow to Frankfurt
26. oktober.november, BA916
2.november, BA916

Frankfurt to London Heathrow
27. oktober, BA901
3.november, BA901

London Heathrow to Istanbul/Istanbul to London Heathrow
27. oktober, BA676 og BA677
2.november, BA676 og BA677
3.november, BA676 og BA677

London Heathrow to Madrid/Madrid to London Heathrow
26.november, BA460 og BA461
------------------------------------------------------------
Here's some English links for this story:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6157707.stm
http://www.britishairways.com/travel/flightops/public/en_gb?p_faqid=2432
------------------------------------------------------------

How come that all international controversial events ends up hurting the air travel industry? :shrug:
Big pictures of planes and terror, and now planes and poison.
Especially when the British govt. are involved.

[Peace Patriot]

3. Gee, where was Valerie Plame and her Brewster-Jennings counterproliferation

network of covert agents/contacts around the world, whose job it was to track items like Russian polonium--when we needed them?

Does no one else sense a connection here?

[seemslikeadream]

4. I do - DICK CHENEY AMERICAN JUDAS

:hi:


Dick Cheney exposed Valerie Plame to cover up his association with A.Q. Khan's Nuclear Walmart. Read about it here: http://s93118771.onlinehome.us/DU/AMERICANJUDAS.pdf

[Peace Patriot]

10. After a little more thought...

So, say the WMD-planting theory of Treasongate (the Plame/Brewster-Jennings outings) is true. At the heart of the theory is some kind of nuclear weapon or nuclear weapon component that Manucher Ghorbanifar was supposed to procure, and get moved into Iraq, as Part 2 of the Niger/Iraq nuke forgeries plot. Part 1: Get this allegation into Bush's speeches (even after the CIA and State Dept. had debunked it). Part 2: Arrange for nukes or nuke weapons materials to be "found" by the U.S. troops who were looking for them, after the invasion--for the obvious purpose of cementing Bush's and Blair's political positions, but also perhaps with an additional motive of discrediting the "white hat" CIA (which had been drawn into a no-nukes-in-Iraq position by the easily detectable Niger forgeries). The plot to plant the nukes got foiled--possibly by the Plame-B/J counter-proliferation network (which is possibly the real reason Rumsfeld/Cheney outed not just Plame but the entire network). David Kelly got killed for knowing about it (the Brits chief WMD expert who died, under highly suspicious circumstances, four days after Plame was outed; his office and computers were searched; then, four days after his death, the entire network, B/J, was additionally outed (also by Novak)).

Which leaves the rabid NeoCons, Ghorbanifar and the other conspirators--who met in Rome in late 2001, and are suspected of concocting the Niger forgeries--with a spare, unused supply of nuclear material that never made it to Iraq.

The WMD-planting theory of Treasongate is actually half way between a theory (lots of evidence) and an hypothesis (lots of guesses). But it seems like the disabling of our WMD counter-proliferation network--and the possible deaths of many of our covert agents and contacts (who were keeping track of these materials and trying to prevent their getting into the wrong hands)--could be the preliminary to a whole lot of nefarious dealings.

Chalabi. Hm. All of these people in the pay of the Pentagon. (My guess: Rumsfeld didn't resign because of the elections. I think he was the mastermind of the worst crimes the Bush Junta has committed, and some of them are beginning to surface.)

----------

I shudder when I think of the private death squads and corporate horror chambers that the Bush Junta has empowered with billions and billions of our tax dollars. Really, I don't like to think about it. It's the scariest part of this quite scary Junta. The only reason I do think about it is that David Kelly's death--for some reason, of all the deaths--struck into my soul as if with a flaming arrow. There was something about the haunted look on his face in his last days on earth that moved me, like nothing else has. Maybe, with so much death, you can't focus on the larger horror, and can only feel compassion one individual at a time. 100,000 thousand innocent Iraqis killed in the initial bombing alone. It's truly hard to take in. But one man caught in a vise, and quietly 'suicided' out of the way of the warmongers...maybe it's that his death speaks to our complicity, as citizens, in the horrors our governments have inflicted. We didn't do enough to stop them. We use their oil. Kelly was an insider, someone who believed in "the system" and was devoted to his job of counter-proliferation. But after a certain point--and for reasons we can only guess at--he just couldn't take it any more. He began whistleblowing anonymously to the BBC about the "sexed up" WMD pre-war intel, which he had been party to. Somebody outed him to his bosses (still a mystery). They interrogated him at a "safe house" and--it appears to me (from the evidence and hunches)--found out he knew something more, something worse than exaggerated intel. He promised not to tell. He was forced to partially recant before a parliamentary war committee. And several days later he was found dead, in circumstances that cry out "murder"--all covered up and whitewashed, of course. He is all of us who didn't do enough. Maybe that's what speaks to me. And he paid dearly for what he did try to do. And I would very much like to see him vindicated, his killers (and those who ordered it) caught and his soul put to rest. We can't stop the torture, apparently. We can't undo the torture, nor the staggering number of deaths. The least we could achieve, to honor the dead, is the truth.

[robertpaulsen]

19. You are definitely on to the truth, Peace Patriot.

And where Brewster Jennings is concerned, their focus may have been Iran, as Larisa Alexandrovna has reported, but I do believe that I read an article that one of the other countries they were tracking WMD activity was Russia. I'll get back here when I find it.

[robertpaulsen]

20. Well, here one from American Judas.

U.S. intelligence sources have also said that Fitzgerald's investigation has gone far beyond the mere leaking of Plame's name, itself a violation of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, but has expanded to look into the exposure of Plame's colleagues who worked under the cover of a CIA firm called Brewster, Jennings & Associates. The "brass plate" CIA proprietary had offices in Boston and Washington, DC. Active since 1994, Brewster-Jennings was instrumental in tracking the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) and had agents or correspondents in a number of countries including Iraq, North Korea, Belarus, Russia, South Africa, Iran, Israel, China, Pakistan, Congo (Kinshasa), India, Taiwan, Libya, Syria, Serbia, and Malaysia. By releasing Valerie Plame’s name, other agents' non-official covers were blown and the lives of U.S. operatives within foreign governments and businesses may have been placed in danger. Therefore, Fitzgerald's investigation has reportedly been expanded to include the issue of whether members of the staffs of President Bush and Vice President Cheney, Cheney and Bush themselves, the National Security Council, and the Departments of Defense and State, may have violated more serious espionage laws.

http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/062504_grand_jury.shtml

[Usrename]

45. somebody outed him to his bosses (still a mystery)..

but we have a few good ideas,

Miller was one of three people who most stood to gain by a "find" of WMDs in Iraq (the other two are Bush and Blair). And she had a critical stake in the success of the Iraq war (some people call it "Judith's war"). She was also one of the people who most stood to be HARMED by NO "find" of WMDs in Iraq--and by any questioning of the justifications for the war. When Kelly turned whistleblower, he thus became a serious threat to her interests, and, if he knew about a WMD-planting plot, or helped foil it, while she was running around Iraq "hunting" for those WMDs and expecting them to be planted for her to "find" them, she would have had much reason for bitter anger at Kelly and at anyone else involved (Plame? BJ?).


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x2029771#2031364

Wasn't Miller in phone contact with him just four hours before his death?

[seemslikeadream]

8. Was Litvinenko an Islam convert?

http://www.blink.org.uk/pdescription.asp?key=13372&grp=18&cat=84

MYSTERY SURROUNDING the death of Alexander Litvinenko deepened when Russian radio station reported the former KGB officer had converted to Islam.


Alexander Litvinenko: Muslim convert?
Ekho Moskvy reported that Litvinenko was read the Yasin surah, or prayer, and given Islamic death rites by an imam invited to the dying spy's hospital bedside.

Scotland Yard are said to be treating the claims seriously.

Ekho, a prominent liberal broadcaster funded by state-owned gas monopoly Gazprom, said Litvinenko would be buried in a Muslim cemetery in London.

[malaise]

16. Wow!

This is an amazing mystery

[spillthebeans]

23. oh boy ,

and Oswald smoked cuban cigars

[MadHound]

11. Sorry, having been in the business, I have to call BS on this one

Having worked in a research reactor, where we shipped out many different isotopes for use in cancer treatments, I think that this price is being inflated for the interest of sensationalizing this story. Yes, polonium is rare, but no more so than other isotopes that reactors crank out regularly. The most expensive product that we cranked out was shipped at aprox $100,000/dose. The manufacture of polonium-210 would indeed have to take place in a reactor, but it wouldn't cost anywhere near £20,000,000. Move the decimal point back, to around £200,000, and that is a much more realistic price.

[muriel_volestrangler]

13. £20m *to acquire*, not to manufacture

If it "could have killed him 100 times over", then the lethal dose would cost £200,000 to acquire; and the amounts sold on the open market are nowhere near the lethal dose. United Nuclear say it would cost about $1 million to buy a lethal dose from them, so we are in that ballpark.

[MadHound]

15. The UN price is grossly overstated.

They regularly buy product from research reactors, at retail prices, and then repackage and put their own mark-up on in it, a fairly hefty one. Thus, their price is including the retail cost of purchasing the polonium from a reactor, shipping costs(fairly extensive), labor costs for repackaging the product, shipping costs to get it to their customers, and profit on top of that. UN finds its market in labs, businesses and schools that don't want to go through the hassle of getting an NRC license for non-exempt quantities, who only need a very small amount. Thus UN is able to charge a pretty penny to their customers, since they have a relatively captive customer base.

However if you are buying polonium straight from a reactor, like I said, it would be only around $200,000 dollars. That is the aprox. retail price, not the manufacturing price. Since buying the needed amount of polonium from a place like UN would be both expensive and raise all sorts of red flags, I imagine that the poisoner got it straight from a reator. Thus, their price to acquire the dose will be much closer to $200,000 than £20,000,000.

Also, note that even the UN price, as inflated as it is, is still an order of magnitude less that what the article states. UN is saying that it would cost people $1,000,000 to purchase the amount from them. The article is stating £20,000,000. Rough conversion puts that at $40,000,000.

This article is overhyping the price, sorry. They're probably doing so in order to further sensationalize the news and sell papers. I know better than to buy the hype, because I worked for years in the business:shrug:

But hey, if you want to take the unverified word of a paper, that's your choice.

[riderinthestorm]

17. A question for you, the amt used to kill the spy was equivalent to less than 2 grains of salt

Do you have any idea what that amount may have cost? Would that amount even be $200k...? That is just such a small amount of the product.

Also on NPR they ran down a whole list of normal daily products that contain polonium 210 like lens cleaners for cameras. According to the report I heard, topically the stuff isn't dangerous at all, and it's widely available. It's lethality comes from ingesting it, but imho if it's so widely utilized commercially then those manufacturers are getting it very cheaply to use in their products.

[MadHound]

21. To process that amount of product, it would, at most, cost around 200K

Depending on how hot they want it, what purity they want, etc. Judging from the period in which the spy died, and his onset of symptoms, I would have to say it was a pretty pure, pretty hot dose. Probably reading out 200-300 mR on contact.

The product that are using it in the manufacturing process are not getting doses that are nearly so high, nor pure, so yes, it is probably very cheap. And as in most products that contain radioactive ingredients, a very very little bit goes a long way. And no, the stuff isn't dangerous unless you ingest it. It is an Alpha emitter, very weak radiation, easily blocked with your skin. Though as we have seen, lethal if you ingest or inhale it.

[muriel_volestrangler]

29. UN said it would cost $1,000,000 to purchase a lethal amount from them

but the amount used was 100 times a lethal amount. So the UN price would be more than quoted in the article.

If a lethal amount can be purchased for $2,000, then your figures work out - for someone with an NRC license.

[MadHound]

30. That's not how the pricing is based in radioactive products

You are not getting, necessarily, larger quantities of a given product, you are getting hotter, more radioactive doses of the product. Thus the price is based on neutrons expended and time used. Thus if you have a product running at say 1 Currie, and a thousand of the same running at 1mC each, then the price for both is going to aprox. the same. In fact the multiple smaller doses(as in UN products) would be more expensive, because of repackaging and shipping costs.

You cannot make a 1-1 cost assessment with radioactive products, it just doesn't work that way. A dose that is lethal, and a dose that 100X lethal are still going to be around the same in price. Again, we're dealing with neutrons expended(that would be expended anyway in a reactor) and time. So essentially the only extra cost is the extra days in the pool getting irradiated with neutrons that were going to be expended anyway:shrug: In many ways, radioactive products are simply a profitable by product of reactors. Just dump in X isotope and let it get bombarded with the neutrons you're expending anyway.

[muriel_volestrangler]

32. OK, that makes sense (n/t)

[radwriter0555]

18. It could also have been stolen.

....

[MadHound]

22. Possibly, but highly unlikely

Radioactive ingredients are covered by multiple national, regional and global rules. Each package containing even miniscule amounts are tracked at every stage along the way of transport. Yes, it could happen, but doing so might actually make it easier to track down the perp.

[Jcrowley]

25. Are all nuclear reactors

subject to IAEA safeguards?

[coffeenap]

12. k & r

[seemslikeadream]

14. fairly expensive to just silence one person

maybe they had other intentions, other messages.

[Octafish]

24. Ill-gotten gains don't hurt to spend.

If you have to earn it, $20 million hurts to part with.

If you stole it, or get it through various nefarious means, there's no pain in parting.

THE RUSSIAN MAFIA

INTRODUCTION:

By David Amoruso
Posted on August 10, 2006

Organized Crime has existed in Russia (former Soviet Union) for centuries. Under the communist regime corruption was as normal in Russia as snow falling during the winter. One of the big money makers for the Russian criminals was selling Western products on the black market, a market they controlled in the 1970s and 80s. It was also during this time that there was a wave of Russian émigrés who fled to North America. Most of these émigrés were Jewish, however a lot of Russians faked a Jewish passport, among them Russian criminals. Most of the Russians settled in Brighton Beach in New York, which has got the largest Russian population outside of Russia.

When the Soviet Union fell apart Russian Organized Crime was unleashed unto the world. Russian Organized Crime can now be found everywhere, from the US to Israel to Spain. The Russians can be considered together with the Italians (Cosa Nostra, Ndrangheta, Camorra) and the Colombians to be the most powerful criminals in the world.

Russian criminals are active in: Fraud, transnational money laundering, extortion, drug trafficking, weapon smuggling, auto theft, white slave trafficking/prostitution, hostage taking, extortion of immigrant celebrities and sport figures, transportation of stolen property for export, insurance (staged auto accidents) and medical fraud (false medical claims), counterfeiting, credit card forgery, and murder.


BOSSES:

Victor Bout (biggest arms dealer in the world)

Aleksandr Solonik (whacked)

Sergei "Mikhas" Mikhailov (boss of the Solsnetskaya Organization)

Evsei "The Little Don" Agron (whacked)

Ludwig 'Tarzan' Fainberg

Semion Mogilevich (living in freedom)

Vyacheslav "Yaponchik" Ivankov (living in freedom in Russia)

Alimzhan Tokhtakhounov (The man who fixed the Salt Lake City olympics)

SOURCE w LINKS and background...

http://gangstersinc.tripod.com/Rus.html

Gee. One would think this thread would have more reads and recommends.

Oh well. There's PBS.

[angstlessk]

26. I know in Briton they know what £20m is...but here in the good ole USA

I have not a clue...upon reading down stream I gather it is 20 million pounds...that would be almost 40 million US dollars (I was about to say USD..but then those from Bangalor might not know what I meant.though I doubt it)...

At first read I thought it was cheap...not knowing what £20m means..I am glad I came back for enlightenment!

[DemReadingDU]

27. thanks. I was curious about the pound/dollar ratio too

[Rockstone]

28. 40 million, yes, but that's retail

That doesn't take into account sales, coupon codes or rebates...

[seemslikeadream]

34. Putin wanted Blair to gag poisoned spy

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-2484059,00.html

Putin wanted Blair to gag poisoned spy
David Cracknell, Mark Franchetti and Jon Ungoed-Thomas

Key suspect: ‘I’ve been framed’

Victim ‘linked’ to organised crime




THE Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has expressed his anger at Britain’s failure to gag Alexander Litvinenko in the final hours of his life, the cabinet has been told.
Margaret Beckett, the foreign secretary, told ministers that the Russian government had “taken exception” to the poisoned former spy’s deathbed letter accusing the Putin regime of murdering him.



This weekend a potential suspect — Andrei Lugovoi — admitted he had been contaminated with the radioactive poison polonium-210 but insisted: “I’ve been framed.”

Beckett, who spoke to her Russian counterpart before Thursday’s cabinet meeting, said the Russians had “seemingly failed to understand” that Litvinenko was under police supervision rather than in custody.

Amid signs that his death could cause a diplomatic row, Tony Blair concluded the cabinet meeting by saying “the most important issue” was likely to be Britain’s long-term relationship with Moscow.

Another minister present said: “It caused some alarm that this case is obviously causing tension with the Russians. They are too important for us to fall out with them over this.”

[followthemoney]

36. Failed superpower kills with radioactive poison... kill one it's news...

Kill thousands that's just DEPLETED URANIUM warfare.

Is this one death an outrage or just POLITICAL POSTURING?

[Octafish]

37. It's a horrible way to die. Someone sent a message.

It's like the ace of spades put in a victim's mouth,
a gangster version of a business card that states:
"I'm nuclear. And mebbe the next one will go 'bang.'"

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/seemslikeadream/127

As noted above, whatever happened to Valerie Plame and Brewster Jennings & Associates?

[seemslikeadream]

38. The Putin bodyguard riddle

another business card:shrug:




http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-2484298,00.html

The Sunday Times December 03, 2006


The Putin bodyguard riddle


A FORMER bodyguard to President Vladimir Putin was murdered with a poison that produced symptoms remarkably similar to those of Alexander Litvinenko it emerged yesterday, writes Jonathan Calvert.
Roman Tsepov died aged 42 in 2004 after suffering severe radiation sickness brought on by a mystery substance he had ingested with food or drink.



The case suggests that use of radioactive poisons — similar to the polonium-210 that killed Litvinenko — may be more widespread than previously thought.

The nature of the poison is still a subject of speculation. Some reports in Russia say he was given a huge dose of a drug normally used to combat leukaemia and other cancers.

Other publications have suggest he was intoxicated by an experimental poison containing huge quantities of heavy metals, which came from a secret Russian chemical weapons facility.

[seemslikeadream]

48. some one else thinks so too

http://www.exile.ru/2006-December-01/toxic_avenger.html

One thing is practically certain in Litvinenko's case: he wasn't killed for something that he knew and was about to reveal. He had many years (and a lot of money put in by Berezovsky in his anti-Putin crusade) to make any sensational revelations he could, and the results were underwhelming. His murder could be revenge, of course, but was more likely a message. The use of an outlandishly exotic material -- the radioactive polonium -- also points in this direction. Damn, could it possibly be any more dramatic? Who committed it and who was the target? It is an almost perfect Agatha Christie detective story: so many possible suspects, so many motives, and in each case so many factors both for and against.

[whatelseisnew]

39. The NYT says it only costs $22.50, who you gonna believe?

The new york times is a biased liberal greatest intellectualist paper in the world and the guardian

is a commie pinko tabloid from socialist brit land.

[whatelseisnew]

40. heres a link for that claim

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=2638962&mesg_id=2638962

[seemslikeadream]

41. Why Judith, of course!

[seemslikeadream]

43. Ukrainian "Orange Revolution" of 2004.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uklatest/story/0,,-6256209,00.html

Press Association
Sunday December 3, 2006 6:38 PM


Detectives investigating the death of ex-KGB spy Alexander Litvinenko are planning to fly to Moscow in their hunt for clues into the dissident's poisoning, sources confirmed

It has also emerged that anti-terror police from Scotland Yard have already taken the investigation to the USA where they are thought to have interviewed a key figure behind the Ukrainian "Orange Revolution" of 2004.

Mr Litvinenko, a fierce critic of president Vladimir Putin, died of radiation poisoning last month, convinced that he had been the victim of a Russian murder plot.

A second man has tested positive for the deadly radioactive substance polonium 210 which is believed to have killed Mr Litvinenko.



Anti-terrorism unit takes over investigation into poisoned spy
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=2624773

Key ministers sacked in Ukraine
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=2636813

Orange Revolution party squeezed out
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=2545624

Yushchenko was poisoned with Russian, U.S. or U.K.-made dioxin
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=2501847


CNN Breaking: Doctors say Yushchenko poisoned by dioxins
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=1063264

AP: Yushchenko Sure Gov't Poisoned Him
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=1076452

Ukraine's Yushchenko blasts govt over fuel crisis
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=1484141

Anger as US backs brutal regime
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=1473236

Russia spy chief says foreigners plotting uprisings
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=1466629

Yushchenko's party 3rd as Orange Revolution fractures
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=2189421

Russia Halts Natural Gas Sales to Ukraine
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=2015488

Ukraine and Russia go to brink over huge gas price rise
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=2007527

[5X]

44. k

[seemslikeadream]

46. Yuri Shvets may have vital information

http://euronews.net/create_html.php?page=detail_info&article=394040&lng=1#


Fresh theories are emerging about the poisoning of former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko. Reports in the British press claim he may have been planning to blackmail senior Russian spies and business figures in a bid to make tens of thousands of pounds.

"The Observer" newspaper also reports claims that Litvinenko may have had a dossier containing damaging revelations about the Kremlin and its links with the Russian oil giant Yukos.

As speculation surrounding the case intensifies, doctors treating KGB expert Mario Scaramella say he is "well." He is believed to be showing no symptoms of radiation poisoning, although traces of toxic polonium 210 - the substance that killed Litvinenko - have been found in his body. The Italian met the ex-spy in London shortly before Litvinenko fell ill. Scaramella has said he believes both were targeted because of secrets they shared.

In another twist, British police have reportedly gone to the US to question - in conjunction with the FBI - another former KGB man, Yuri Shvets. A contact of Scaramella, it is thought he may have vital information.

Like Litvinenko, Shvets is said to have worked for Russian billionaire and former oligarch Boris Berezovsky, who lives in self-imposed exile in the UK.

A vocal critic of Vladimir Putin, Litvinenko blamed the Russian president for ordering his death. The Kremlin denies any role.

British police are reportedly planning to fly to Moscow as part of their enquiry.

[seemslikeadream]

47. Man detained over spy poisoning

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20865991-2703,00.html

Man detained over spy poisoning
Correspondents in London
December 04, 2006
BRITAIN'S domestic security service MI5 has detained a man thought to have significant information about the apparent radiation death of Alexander Litvinenko, newspaper reports said yesterday.
The reports quoted an unnamed senior government source saying the man was taken into custody in east central England last week.

"MI5 don't arrest people," an unidentified security source said. "When people are detained by the security services it is because they have come forward to us to give us information."

There was no immediate word from the British authorities on the report.

It is thought the former Russian spy might have been killed in London after a deal that went wrong with associates involved in the ruthless world of Russian business.

According to security sources, investigators are looking at the former spy's dealings with Russian businessmen involved in the lucrative energy sector and the shadowy world of private security. "We are looking at a very long list of Litvinenko's friends and foes since he has been in London," one source said.

The list includes exotic figures ranging from billionaire businessmen, former Kremlin spies and KGB agents to underworld bosses.