TA-THREATS: North Korea Purchases 100 Tons of Sodium Cyanide

North Korea purchased over 100 tons of sodium cyanide last year from an unnamed South Korean company. The transaction was made by transferring the commodities to China where North Korea could purchase them. Sodium cyanide has many uses but can also be turned into the nerve agent sarin which causes paralysis and death.

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Sodium cyanide is a dual use product, which if misused, can be deadly. Sodium cyanide is currently a restricted export item because of this, and companies who wish to export must get approval of the sale. Still it is difficult to be certain that the purchasing company will not turn around and resell to a blacklisted customer. A Malaysian company is also under review after it was learned that 15 tons of sodium cyanide it purchased from S. Korea last year ended up in N. Korea.

Additional Sources:
Toxic chemical shipped to NoKor from South

[edit on 24-9-2004 by dbates]

If N. Korea converts this 100 ton purchase into Sarin and then uses it against S. Korea, from whom they bought it, that'd be one of the biggest 'I told you so's' in human history.

So thats where all the WMD went Bush was a couple thousand miles off....

Read a novel in which North Korea launched a chemical attack against Seoul, Korea and the gas was "Serin". I guess the aurthor new what he was talking about.

Well I guess North and South Korea cant be that bigger enemies of each other. Also why is the US supporting a country that is selling this stuff?

Thats the problem with chemical weapons. Alot of the chemicals and factories are so called dual use. Ortho, Monsano et al, could easily tool up and make chemical weapons as well. The chemical may have legit uses, but given its Kim..........

Good catch dbates, we need to keep on eye on further "purchases"



[edit on 24-9-2004 by FredT]

You would think that something like this would get more attention, but it seems to be off the radar of most major news organizations. I guess they want to assume that N. Korea is wanting to use this for agricultural purposes. Sure, and they want to enrich uranium to test their Geiger counters.

Did a bit of searching on this, it is/was a widely used Pesticide. So obviously it can be dangerous, but so can many others.

I can't find any recent documents after a quick search, after 1994. It appears it is still used in many countries including the USA.

I shall ask my father if I remember, he is an Agro chemical expert and consultant.

But from first glance this appears to be nothing of significance.

Utter rubbish!! It's amazing how we all accept our spoon fed news, we believe everything we are told, just because its in the news LOL

We used Sodium Cyanide to extract the gold and sikver out of the ore at one of our mines. A few years ago, I found several pounds of NaCN, along with jugs of hydrofloric acid and mercury in the garage. Since we no longer had any use of the material, I transported all of these chemical to the Mackay School of Mine located at the University of Reno. When the staff went out to my truck to help me unload the contents, they nearly freaked out. The stuff that I was carrying was enough to kill a city as big as Reno. He said that if I had smashed some of the jars open and the chemicals had been mixed together, kaboom!

Glad to have disposed of all of the poison when I did.... That included also some Hercules powder, still in the original containers. Kept the containers, but dumped the powder.

Just because the news media mentioned that several tons of NaCN were bought by N. Korea, doesn't necessarily imply that they are going to be using it a destructive fashion. Heck, even water is a potentially lethal chemical (in excess).


NVBadBoy

Exactly. Just like when Iraq purchased 10 tonnes of Aerosil powder. Aerosil is used in chemical weapons so it can penetrate clothing.

Aerosil is also used in the production of .. PLASTIC compounds and polymers.

Again, there are hundreds of chemicals that have legitment uses that can also be used in chem warfare.

but for sake of argument, since NaCN is a controlled substance, and N.Korea wanted it for non-lethal reasons, it would only have to follow the needed protocals. But to buy it on the black market instead raises all kinds of eyebrows.