Officials in the former Soviet republic of Georgia grabbed a guy last year who had bomb-grade uranium he was trying to sell (more to the point, he had a sample in his shirt pocket). But he claimed to have up to three kilograms, which is enough for a small nuke.

An excerpt from the NYT story:

The case has alarmed officials because they had thought that new security precautions had tamped down the nuclear black market that developed in the 1990s, after the Soviet Union collapsed.

Until now, all but the vague outlines of the case have remained secret. But an examination of the episode, and a similar one in 2003, suggests that the region’s political instability and culture of rampant corruption continue to provide a fertile breeding ground for illicit commerce in atomic materials.

Interviews with Georgian and American officials, along with a review of confidential government documents, provide a glimpse into a world of smugglers who slip across poorly policed borders and the agents who try to stop them.

The illicit trade — not just in atomic goods but also in everything from stolen cars to furs to counterfeit $100 bills — thrives especially in Georgia, where tiny separatist regions have broken away to become lawless criminal havens.

This latest uranium seizure, said the American ambassador here, John F. Tefft, “highlights how smuggling and loose border control, associated with Georgia’s separatist conflicts,” pose a threat “not just to Georgia but to all the international community.”

What is most worrisome about the two most recent case, nuclear experts say, is the material itself: in large enough quantities, it could provide a terrorist with an instant solution to the biggest challenge in making a nuclear weapon, obtaining the fuel.

The uranium seized in both 2003 and 2006 had been enriched to nearly 90 percent U-235, according to Russian and American government analyses obtained by The New York Times. Though the quantities were too small to make a bomb, that level of purity is ideal for doing so.

Both cases appear to fit a broader profile: virtually all of the nuclear materials seized since the Soviet breakup are believed to be Russian in origin, according to American government reports.

In these two episodes, the individuals arrested testified that they had obtained the uranium through a web of Russian contacts and middlemen of various nationalities.

An American government laboratory’s analysis of the 2006 material — which, among other things, disclosed traces of two rare forms of uranium, U-234 and U-236 — provides “a strong case” that it indeed came from Russia, said Thomas B. Cochran, director of the nuclear program at the Natural Resources Defense Council, a private group that monitors atomic arsenals.

However, a confidential memorandum from the Russian intelligence service, the F.S.B., to the Georgian government said a detailed analysis had been unable to pinpoint the material’s origins, though it did not rule out Russian provenance. It also estimated that the uranium had been processed more than a decade ago.

Officials in Georgia, locked in a cold war with Moscow, say the cases underscore their concerns over borders, security and the fate of the breakaway regions.

Update

From the Jan. 25 LAT:

Russian authorities on Friday rejected as an overblown propaganda ploy the announcement this week that one of their citizens was arrested last year in Georgia while allegedly trying to sell a small amount of weapons-grade uranium.

Russian national Oleg Khintsagov was arrested Feb. 1 after he smuggled about 3.5 ounces of the uranium into Georgia from his homeland, expecting to receive $1 million for it, Shota Utiashvili, chief of the analytical department of the Georgian Interior Ministry, said Friday in a telephone interview from Tbilisi, the Georgian capital.

Khintsagov, who thought he was dealing with "an extremely wealthy customer" wanting to buy nuclear bomb-making material, claimed that he would be able to provide up to 6.6 pounds at the price of $1 million for each 3.5 ounces, Utiashvili said.

Khintsagov was convicted for the attempted sale and is serving a sentence of at least eight years in a Georgian prison.

Some experts say that as little as 4 pounds of weapons-grade uranium could be sufficient to construct a bomb, but more common estimates are that even a highly sophisticated weapon would need several times that amount. Estimates of how much enriched uranium a terrorist organization would need to make a relatively crude bomb typically range from 35 to 50 pounds.

Utiashvili charged that Russia had not cooperated in the investigation of the incident, which was first made public this week by Georgian and U.S. officials. These officials said the CIA, the FBI and the Energy Department had assisted in the case.

"We think it is extremely dangerous that such material can get into the hands of terrorists," Utiashvili said. "We think it is in everybody's interests, and especially in the interests of Russia, to get to the bottom of it and assist us in this investigation."