Riddles of radioactive materials

  Second Part of10 most high-profile secrets of nuclear                                        weapons 

5. Spies stole American uranium?

Before and during the Cold War, the Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation (NUMEC) was active at a nuclear facility in Apollo, PA. The facility was closed in 1983.

But in the mid-1990s there was a leak of radiation in the vicinity. NUMEC owners still pay millions in compensation to local residents who filed a lawsuit in connection with the development of various types of cancer.

But even while the facility was operating, NUMEC owned another potentially destructive affair. Each nuclear facility, due to leakage, writes off a certain amount of material to a natural decrease.

However, in NUMEC's ​​records, there were hundreds of missing kilograms. Some experts suggested that everything was to blame for leakage through the vents . Others say that the leak was only on paper, and is the result of poor accounting.

Meanwhile, several experts and intelligence officials have a different theory. They believe that uranium was stolen by Mossad spies . In the 1960s, Israel conducted covert operations around the world to secure nuclear materials.

The creator of NUMEC, Zalman Shapiro, was in close contact with the Israeli intelligence bureau. Several times he even incognito visited the center.

The AEC organization, which is responsible for monitoring and controlling the supply of uranium and plutonium from private plants, strangled any investigation related to the participation of Israel because they did not want to take out the dirty linen in public.

The CIA director later launched his own investigation because environmental samples near one of the Israeli reactors showed a rare type of uranium that could only come from NUMEC.

A CIA investigation revealed that Shapiro was in contact with one of Israel's top spies, as well as with many other important people from the intelligence community. Former employees claimed they saw tanks that were probably filled with nuclear material at the NUMEC facility loading bay.

Documents were also shown showing that the material was being sent to Israel.

When the NUMEC facility was finally decommissioned, 90 kg of missing uranium were found, but soon a study showed that between 1957 and 1968, 269 ​​kilograms of uranium disappeared.

Over the next 9 years , another 76 kilograms disappeared , despite the fact that the amount of processed uranium increased. This is much more than any reasonable limits of natural decline.

In the end, the investigation ran out of steam, leaving behind only speculation about what happened.

4. Did Polonius kill Yasser Arafat?

In 2006, Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko was poisoned with polonium - 210, which made this “fighting" substance known. The substance was easily found in the body of a man. 

This radioactive material was also at the center of a possible murder two years before Litvinenko’s death.

When Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat died in 2004 in France, his personal physician was extremely unhappy with the refusal of French doctors to diagnose the disease that led to his death.

The official statement said that Arafat died from a "mysterious blood disease." His wife wished to carry out the burial without autopsy. However, Arafat’s death occurred shortly after a sharp decline in well-being, which is why many Palestinians suspect poisoning.

In 2012, Al Jazeera is conducting an investigation into the possibility of poisoning. Swiss tests found traces of polonium - 210 on his personal belongings, but experts emphasized that the symptoms that accompanied Yasser in the last days and hours of life do not correspond to those that arise with polonium poisoning.

After polonium was discovered in such a large number, Palestinians accused Israel of involvement in this case. Israel, in turn, claims that polonium was specially planted, since its half-life is 138 days, so so many years after Yasser’s death, he simply cannot be present in such quantities on his clothes.

Despite everything, the body was exhumed.

Independent studies have been carried out in different countries. After the remains were tested by Russian scientists, they decided that the theory of polonium poisoning was unfounded.

Swiss scientists, however, found a high polonium content on the pelvic bones and on Arafat's ribs. They claimed that the skull and bones of the limbs, which were analyzed in Moscow, were not suitable for analysis because the highest levels of material were not concentrated in these parts of the body.

Some of the samples were sent to the French laboratory, whose experts also ruled out the possibility of poisoning.

Thus, many contradictory conclusions have accumulated, there is no clear answer, and no one understands whether Arafat died for natural reasons, or he was still poisoned with polonium.