NCJ Number
183131
Date Published
2000
Length
13 pages
Annotation
This study assesses the threat of nuclear proliferation from the illicit sales of Russian nuclear materials and arms by Russian organized crime groups.
Abstract
Data are presented to show that nuclear material in various quantities and forms has appeared on the buyers' market. Criminals are willing to steal such material and make it available to customers who want it for various purposes. There are groups and nations that are desperately attempting to build nuclear bombs in order to have at their disposal science's most devastating and destructive force. Terrorist groups have joined forces with other organized criminal groups in a web of patron-client relationships that spans the globe. This study also shows that Russia's control over its nuclear arsenal and materials is, as the evidence of nuclear material on the market reveals, in a state of serious disintegration. In interviewing two high-ranking Russian military officials, some of the authors were alerted to this deterioration as far back as 1995. The continuation of this deterioration has been noted by Russian scientists themselves, who have admitted that there are major problems of quality control that compromise the reliability of Russia's nuclear weapons arsenal. This study portrays a world in chaos, where new groups of terrorists are networking and willing to trade and exchange drugs and offer other services in return for nuclear weapons and materials that will bring them or their supporting states the power of threatening the world with a nuclear bomb or other nuclear devices. Russia and its Commonwealth states have become sources for the illegal supplying of nuclear and other weapons to these groups. The readiness of the United States to counter this threat is not very optimistic. 4 notes and 41 references