Nuclear smuggling

The Taxi Drivers Turned Black-Market Nuke Smugglers

Only a few weeks after Georgia’s president attended the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington, D.C., law enforcement nabbed illegal uranium dealers in his own backyard, in the country’s capital of Tbilisi.

The arrests stoked fears of an underground nuclear market, of radiation leakage, and of terrorists working on a dirty bomb. With accounts of local Muslims in Georgia joining up with ISIS, not to mention a brewing conflict between neighboring Armenia and Azerbaijan, Georgians have good reason to be worried.

According to authorities, six men—three Georgians and three Armenians—were trying to sell a few kilos of uranium for $200 million. Four of the six were pensioners and the other two worked as taxi drivers. A Tbilisi court convicted all the smugglers and they face up to 10 years in prison.

The smugglers were arrested in a private apartment in a joint special operation by Georgian counterintelligence and special-ops departments “for illegal handling of nuclear materials,” according to the State Security Service of Georgia.