4 held in Namibia on nuke material theft- Yellowcake

4 held in Namibia on nuke material theft- Yellowcake

www.news24.com

Windhoek - Namibian authorities have arrested four people they suspect of stealing drums of radioactive material from a mine in the country that is a major exporter of uranium, officials said on Monday.

"The next step is to confirm that the material is indeed uranium oxide, but physical observation points in that direction. This will also allow us to fingerprint the origin of the material," Tibinyane told Reuters.

The spokesperson in Namibia for the French nuclear firm Areva, Sugnét Smit, told Reuters: "The situation is very sensitive. Tests have been conducted to see if it concerns

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namibian. me

Mods please excuse me should there already be a thread on this. I cannot use ATS search with my current remote server.

According to Wiki the mine should only have been fully operational in 2013. Now either the mine was finished ahead of schedule (highly unlikely) or this was some of the first batches that were done. I doubt they had mined enough to have a hundreds of drums left lying about scantily guarded.
One would expect that a mine dealing in such material would have feisty security with attack dogs, guard towers and scanners galore. You never hear of a couple of bags of diamonds or tons of gold gone missing because it just doesn’t happen.


www.news24.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

Reports suggest that the uranium stems from Areva's operation near Trekkopje between Usakos and Swakopmund. The value of the uranium found near Mondesa in Swakopmund is estimated at around N$700 000, though the destination of the radioactive materials was unclear at the time of the arrest of three suspects on Friday.
In a related incident last year an officer of the NDF was arrested with several other operatives as they attempted to smuggle radioactive materials out of the country. These developments have frightening implications for the safety of local residents, but also raise serious questions about Namibia's commitment to upholding the terms of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

namibian.me...


On the uranium mine where the material was stolen from:
AREVA (Euronext: CEI) is a French public multinational industrial conglomerate headquartered in the Tour Areva in Courbevoie, Paris.[1] AREVA is mainly known for nuclear power; it also has interests in other energy projects. It was created on 3 September 2001, by the merger of Framatome (now AREVA NP), Cogema (now AREVA NC) and Technicatome (now AREVA TA). Its main shareholder is the French public-sector company, the CEA, which owns 78.9%. The CEA's brief is similar to that of the US Department of Energy. But the German company Siemens also retains 34% of the shares of AREVA's subsidiary, AREVA NP, in charge of building the EPR, an advanced Generation III+ PWR nuclear reactor.[2]

reply to post by Monkeygod333


So who stole it and what agency were they working for?

reply to post by backinblack


I dont know dude, they're mum about it. They dont say who it was, whether they were local or international or what it's final destination would be.
Like I said they had to have fiesty security at the mine so that leaves two options; Either they are a specialised team from some shady force or one of the employees were involved is sneaking the stuff out.

Since you are you only one to reply, I'd like you to take a look at the first paragraph on this link. How's the names of the mine and mining company? www.steelguru.com...