Georgia arrests man over attempted $700,000 uranium sale

Georgia has detained a ​man who planned to sell ​uranium-238 to a foreign ‌national ​for $700,000, the national security service said on Wednesday. The Georgian citizen is accused of ‌illegally handling nuclear material and faces up to 10 years in prison, it said in a statement, sharing a video of armed security personnel ‌pulling a man out of a white sedan and handcuffing him ‌on the ground.

It was not immediately possible to contact the man or a legal representative for comment. The footage also showed agents testing two small containers in ⁠the ​trunk of ⁠the vehicle with a handheld radiation detector. One of them appeared to contain a ⁠light-coloured powder.

Uranium-238 is the most common uranium isotope and, while radioactive, is ​not ordinarily usable on its own to make a nuclear bomb. The ⁠security of nuclear materials was one of the biggest concerns after the 1991 ⁠fall ​of the Soviet Union, of which Georgia was part. There have been several serious incidents involving the illicit trade in ⁠nuclear materials in Georgia over recent decades.

In February, Georgia detained two people who ⁠attempted to purchase $3 ⁠million worth of uranium and a cache of a radioactive isotope found in nuclear weapons testing ‌programmes.