April
1, 2004
Nuclear Trafficking Hoaxes: A Short History of
Scams Involving Red Mercury and Osmium-187
Kenley Butler, Research Associate
Akaki Dvali,
Graduate Research Assistant
Center for Nonproliferation Studies
 Issue
Brief Relevant
Resources
Multiple instances of profit-motivated
nuclear hoaxes have been reported in the media in the past two decades,
in which sellers offer weapons-usable or weapons-grade nuclear material
and instead deliver some other bogus radioactive, or in some cases,
nonradioactive substance. Such scams increased when economic conditions
in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe declined in the late 1980s
and early 1990s. The region’s economic decline coupled with weakened
security and enforcement mechanisms and a growing interest on the part
of both state and non-state actors to illegally obtain nuclear materials
all created favorable conditions for nuclear trafficking scams.
Osmium
is a hard metal of the platinum group used to produce very hard alloys
for fountain pen tips, instrument pivots, phonograph needles, and
electrical contacts.
Nuclear scams often involve natural
uranium, depleted uranium, or low-enriched uranium (LEU) reactor fuel,
none of which is suitable for nuclear weapons. Other scams involve
highly radioactive sources, such as cesium-237 or cobalt-60, which,
though not fissile material, could be lethal components in a
radiological dispersal device.
Two non-fissile substances that frequently have been used by con artists
as substitutes for nuclear materials are so-called red mercury
and osmium-187. Hoaxes involving both substances have become legendary
after being the subject of widely reported trafficking attempts
throughout the 1990s. A major reason these scams have been so widespread
and common is likely related to the fact that there is some truth in the
claims made by the con artists. Red mercury is the name given to an
alleged nuclear weapon ingredient that does not exist in the form (Hg2Sb207)
and with the characteristics described by nuclear scam artists. Some
experts have suggested, however, that red mercury is in fact another
name for lithium-6, a substance that can be used in the
production of compact and highly efficient thermonuclear devices.
Osmium-187 is a bona fide nonradioactive material not used for weapon
construction, but because it is indeed an expensive commodity and one
that is produced through a process similar to uranium enrichment,
nuclear traffickers seized on it as a marketable product. This issue
brief provides background on the two substances and summarizes some of
the high-profile hoaxes in which they have been used.
Red Mercury
Red mercury has been the subject of dozens, if not hundreds, of cases or
attempted cases of illicit trafficking. Some of the more interesting
cases involving the transfer of materials under the name of red mercury
include the following:
--After his defection, a former deputy unit chief of the North Korean
uranium refinery plant Namchon Chemical Complex claimed that North Korea
imported beryllium and red mercury from sources in Russia in 1993
through a smuggling organization in Pyongyang that involved the Russian
mafia.[1]
--In one attempt that stands out for the quantity offered and price
requested, a Romanian woman reportedly offered to sell 138 kg of red
mercury purchased in Chelyabinsk and acquired in Moscow to the Swiss
firm Mueller Troihand for $340,000 per kg.[2]
--A December 1997 New
York Times article reported allegations made by a political
rival that former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic attempted to
purchase a nuclear weapon in 1995 from sources in the former Soviet
Union in order to put an end to the Bosnian War. Karadzic allegedly paid
$6 million up front for the device, with an additional $60 million to
follow. Told that the device was made from red mercury, Karadzic
received a brass container filled with jelly-like material. Surprised at
the contents, he reportedly sent aides to Moscow to determine whether
the device was in fact a nuclear weapon. To his dismay, the word from
Moscow was that he had been swindled.[3]
--A June 1999 issue of Jane’s Intelligence Review cited Western
intelligence analysts as saying that Al Qai’da operatives with little
technical expertise were being swindled in their attempts to locate and
purchase nuclear materials. One of these agents, later arrested in the
United States, may have been swindled by con artists selling red
mercury.[4]
Red mercury has been the subject of films, books, newspaper articles,
and high-level political intrigue, yet, according to much-publicized
statements from British, Russian, and U.S. government officials, no
material matching the properties of red mercury exists, and no such
material is used in the construction of nuclear weapons. How, then, did
red mercury become the nuclear commodity of choice for con artists and
unwitting buyers?
References to red mercury began to appear in major Russian and Western
media sources in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The articles were never
specific as to what exactly red mercury was, but the accounts claimed
that the substance was a valuable strategic commodity and a necessary
component in a nuclear bomb and/or that it was important in the
production of boosted nuclear weapons. Supposedly citing a leaked
Russian government memorandum, an April 1993 article in the widely-read
Russian daily Pravda reported that red mercury is “a
super-conductive material used for producing high-precision conventional
and nuclear bomb explosives, ‘stealth’ surfaces and self-guided
warheads. Primary end-users are major aerospace and nuclear-industry
companies in the United States and France along with nations aspiring to
join the nuclear club, such as South Africa, Israel, Iran, Iraq, and
Libya.”[5] Red mercury was peddled
throughout Europe and the Middle East by Russian businessmen, who made
fortunes in the process. In one case, a Saudi Arabian sheikh reportedly
paid £2.5 million for several shipments of the substance.[6]
Described as a brownish powder or a red liquid,[7]
red mercury was said to originate from various locations in the USSR,
namely Ust-Kamenogorsk, Kazakhstan,[8]
and Krasnoyarsk, Novosibirsk,[9] and
Sverdlovsk in Russia.[10]
Western media also carried accounts of red mercury and its nuclear
applications. According to a July 1993 article in Nucleonics Week,
red mercury was a code word used in the USSR nuclear weapons program
since the 1950s to describe enriched lithium-6, which, according to the
article, can be used to produce tritium, which, when fused with
deuterium, can be used in the fusion stage of a thermonuclear weapon.
Lithium-6 received its code name because of the red-hued impurities in
the mercury used to produce lithium-6. According to the article, the
USSR built a large complex in the early days of its nuclear weapon
program to produce and stockpile lithium-6.[11]
The Nucleonics Week article was followed by two television
programs on red mercury produced by the British Broadcasting Corporation
as part of its Dispatches series. Trail of Red Mercury
(1993) and Pocket Neutron (1994) presented “startling new
evidence” that Russian scientists had designed a simple, cheap, pure
fusion weapon or neutron bomb, the size of a tennis
ball, using a “mysterious compound” called red mercury.[12]
A June 1994 article in the venerable International Defense Review
quoted Western and Russian nuclear physicists as confirming the
existence and destructive capabilities of red mercury.[13]
One of those quoted, U.S. nuclear physicist Sam Cohen, to this day
continues to write passionately about the nuclear applications of red
mercury, which he describes as a “ballotechnic” explosive that,
“when ignited, does not actually explode but stays intact long enough
to produce the enormous temperatures and pressures sufficient to enable
deuterium-tritium fusion.”[14]
However, beginning in 1992, at the height of the red mercury scams,
government and independent experts from Russia, the United States, and
elsewhere made repeated attempts to debunk the idea that red mercury was
a wonder-weapon. In September 1992, Yuriy Tychkov, deputy minister of
the Russian Ministry of Atomic Energy and Industry, called rumors about
red mercury’s usefulness in weapons a sham. According to Tychkov, many
entrepreneurs were using the name of red mercury, an uncontrolled
substance, as a cover for smuggling controlled substances—precious
metals and fissile material—out of the country. Tychkov reported that
dozens of Russian ministries were inundated with requests for export
licenses for the non-existent substance.[15]
The head of Interpol’s National Central Bureau in Russia, Militia
Lieutenant General Vasiliy Ignatov, made the following statement at an
Interpol congress in March 1993: “No red mercury exists in nature,
either factually or physically, and such an element is impossible to
create. What is being sold, as a rule, are different reagents.”[16]
In a July 1993 Pravda article, Major General Aleksandr Gurov,
director of the Russian Security Ministry’s Scientific Research
Institute of Security was quoted as saying that red mercury is a slang
term for “oxide of mercury.”[17]
Gurov was later appointed head of a special government commission tasked
with investigating red mercury. In his findings, released in 1995, Gurov
insisted that red mercury does not exist.[18]
One of the strangest chapters in the story of red mercury scams was the
signing of Decree No. 75-RPS On the Promekologiya Concern on
February 21, 1992 by then President Boris Yeltsin granting a
Yekaterinburg-based company, Promekologiya, exclusive rights to produce,
purchase, store, transport, and sell 84 tons of red mercury for $24.2
billion over a three-year period to a Van Nuys, California company
called Automated Products International. Promekologiya was to use
proceeds from the sales for public works projects throughout Russia,
such as defense conversion, power generation, and environmental
projects. The head of Promekologiya reported that his company received
over $40 billion in orders from foreign companies.[19]
The decree was later rescinded on March 20, 1993. Open source material
does not indicate what materials, if any, actually changed hands.[20]
By the mid- to late-1990s, open source accounts of trafficking in red
mercury in the former Soviet Union dried up as media and government
authorities debunked its alleged nuclear applications and denied its
very existence. Russian media carried fewer and fewer accounts of red
mercury hoaxes as reporters, the public, and prospective buyers became
better informed.
Political pundits and social commentators have advanced several theories
to explain the 1990s red mercury phenomenon in the former Soviet Union.
Some suggest that it was simply a grand deception perpetrated by
entrepreneurial criminals meant to bilk money from gullible buyers. A
more sinister interpretation, and one shared by Deputy Minister of
Atomic Energy Tychkov, is that it was a cover for the successful export
of precious metals or fissile material. Still others believe the
phenomenon was a carefully crafted scam by the Russian government to
make millions. A report by Intelligence Online suggests that Western
intelligence agencies used the Russian-produced scam to identify
middlemen caught in Russia’s trap. Furthermore, the report claims that
the United States has a renewed interest in reviewing the last
decade’s red mercury scams and its perpetrators to determine whether
real radioactive material actually exchanged hands.[21]
Others, however, continue to believe in red mercury and its purported
nuclear properties. U.S. nuclear physicist Sam Cohen continues to claim
that the U.S. government is simply turning a blind eye to a technology
it knows exists and raises concerns about the consequences of a
terrorist attack using a red mercury device.[22]
Two Russian academics go so far as to claim that red mercury can be used
to resolve the ills of the human race and planet earth by aiding in oil
extraction, restoring exhausted mines to production, reviving
unproductive agricultural land, recultivating nuclear test sites,
cleansing land polluted with radionuclides, producing medicine, and
creating environmentally clean fuel for new sources of energy.[23]
Osmium-187
No sooner had red mercury begun to disappear from media reports than
nuclear traffickers began touting a new commodity—osmium-187—as a
vital substance for the creation of nuclear weapons.
Osmium is a hard metal of the platinum group used to produce very hard
alloys for fountain pen tips, instrument pivots, phonograph needles, and
electrical contacts.[24] Osmium-related
scams involve osmium-187, one of the seven naturally occurring osmium
isotopes, which comprises only 1.64% of natural osmium. Osmium-187 is
included neither in special nuclear materials, which are controlled by
the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, nor in the dual-use items of the
Commerce Control List maintained by the Bureau of Industry and Security
of the U.S. Department of Commerce.[25]
Osmium-187 is not a controlled material under the Guidelines of the
Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) either. Osmium-187 is frequently used in
scams by con artists, however, who claim that it has nuclear weapons
applications.
Because osmium-187 is very dense, it might be thought to be an excellent
material for a nuclear weapon’s tamper, which allows the nuclear
explosive material to stay compact for a relatively long period of time,
increasing the explosive yield. However, osmium-187 would not be a
logical choice for a tamper because it is very expensive, costing from
$50,000 to $100,000 per gram, and other materials, such as uranium-238,
are much cheaper and more readily available. In addition, osmium-187
would be too dense to be used as a neutron reflector, which aids in
increasing the yield of a nuclear weapon. Instead, beryllium, a lighter
material, is typically used to make reflectors because it is less
expensive and has better neutron reflecting properties. Finally,
osmium-187 is not radioactive, which excludes its use as a component of
a “dirty bomb,” or radiological dispersal device.
The technique required to separate osmium-187 from natural osmium is
quite similar to the uranium enrichment process, which could be one of
the arguments used by con artists to claim the isotope has nuclear
applications. Such arguments are frequently repeated by the media as
well, which unfortunately give credence to the con artists’ claims
that the isotope indeed has nuclear applications. For example, a
September 2002 article in the Russian newspaper Argumenty i fakty
discusses the threat posed by smuggling of osmium-187, claiming that
technologies for the chemical separation of osmium and plutonium are
completely identical, erroneously implying that osmium is linked to the
production of nuclear weapons.[26]
In spite of attempts by experts to debunk osmium’s supposed nuclear
applications, many sources, including the media and even government
officials, continue to tout osmium’s strategic significance and warn
of its possible use in nuclear weapons. For example, in September 2002,
a member of the Russian Parliament’s Security Committee, Viktor
Ilyukhin, accused Kazakhstan of unauthorized production of osmium-187,
which, in his words, can be used in the production of nuclear weapons.[27]
It’s also notable that Kazakhstan itself controls osmium-187 as a
dual-use material.[28]
Scams related to osmium-187 trafficking are generally motivated by
profit and usually occur on the territory of the former Soviet Union,
since the region possesses two major osmium mining plants: Norilsk
Nickel in Russia and Kazakhmys in Kazakhstan.[29]
Some examples of attempted trafficking scams involving osmium-187
include the following:
--On June 21, 2000, police in Novosibirsk Oblast, Russia, arrested eight
suspects and seized an ampoule with an unspecified quantity of
osmium-187. The material was stolen from a Kazakhstani factory by four
workers, who had transported it across the border into Russia in hopes
of selling it in Novosibirsk.[30]
--According to the Moscow regional directorate of the Russian Federal
Security Service, on December 28, 2001, five suspects were arrested in
Moscow for attempting to sell 6 grams of osmium-187 to a Moscow banker
for $800,000.[31] On February 28, 2003,
Russia’s Federal Security Service announced that it had thwarted a
criminal gang’s attempts to sell osmium-187 when security officers
detained one person with an unspecified amount of osmium-187 in the
Siberian city of Omsk.[32]
[1] Yi
Tong-uk, Wolgan Choson; in “Defector Testifies On DPRK Nuclear
Development,” June 1, 1997, FBIS Document FBIS-EAS-97-113; NIS Nuclear
Trafficking database, NTI website, <http://nti.org/db/nistraff/1997/19970370.htm>.
[2] “Krasnaya rtut” [Red mercury],
Yadernyy Kontrol, June 1995, pp. 22-24; NIS Nuclear Trafficking
database, NTI website, <http://nti.org/db/nistraff/1995/19951220.htm>.
[3] Chris Hedges, “An Old Tale Of
Swindle Of Nuclear Proportions Resurfaces In Bosnia,” New York
Times, December 14, 1997; NIS Nuclear Trafficking database, NTI
website, <http://nti.org/db/nistraff/1997/19971420.htm>.
[4] Yekaterina Kostikova, Andrey Kaloshin,
Petr Pryanishnikov, “Bin Laden Already Had Russian Missiles,”
Versiya, May 25-31, 1999; NIS Nuclear Trafficking database, NTI website,
<http://nti.org/db/nistraff/1999/19990560.htm>.
[5] “Yeltsingate,” Pravda,
April 17, 1993, p. 3; NIS Nuclear Trafficking database, NTI website,
<http://nti.org/db/nistraff/1993/19930380.htm>.
[6] “Miraculous Mercury is a Russian
Red Herring,” The Daily Telegraph, March 19, 1994; NIS Nuclear
Trafficking database, NTI website, <http://nti.org/db/nistraff/1994/19940220.htm>.
[7] “Prague Journalists Track ‘Red
Mercury’ Shipments from Russia,” Nezavisimaya gazeta,
November 25, 1992; NIS Nuclear Trafficking database, NTI website,
<http://nti.org/db/nistraff/1993/19930040.htm>.
[8] “Turkish Forces in Anti-Smuggling
Operation,” Milliyet (Turkey), September 1993; NIS Nuclear
Trafficking database, NTI website, <http://nti.org/db/nistraff/1993/19930820.htm>.
[9] “Prague Journalists Track ‘Red
Mercury’ Shipments from Russia,” Nezavisimaya gazeta,
November 25, 1992.
[10] Edward V. Badolato and Dale
Andrade, “Red Mercury: Hoax or the Ultimate Terrorist Weapon?” Counterterrorism
and Security (Spring 1996), pp. 18-20.
[11] “‘Red Mercury’ is Lithium-6,
Russian Weaponsmiths Say,” Nucleonics Week, July 22, 1993, p.
10; NIS Nuclear Trafficking database, NTI website, <http://nti.org/db/nistraff/1993/19930690.htm>.
There are two naturally occurring stable isotopes of lithium. Lithium-7
is the most prevalent isotope at 92.5% concentration, and lithium-6 at
7.5% makes up the remainder. Lithium-6 is created through an enrichment
process and can indeed be used to produce tritium for thermonuclear
weapons. The United States enriched lithium for use in nuclear weapons
from 1950 to 1963 at its Oak Ridge plant. China, France, Russia, and the
United Kingdom are all believed to be capable of making lithium-6.
Lithium-6 is more likely to be of interest to state actors with nuclear
weapons experience than to non-state actors because of the significant
knowledge of nuclear weapons physics and technology needed to use the
substance in a thermonuclear weapon.
[12] “Nuclear Warfare,” RW Films
website, <http://www.rwfilms.co.uk/nuclfilms.html>. PPNN Newsbrief
Electronic Version, Second Quarter 1994, p. 7.
[13] Frank Barnaby, “Red Mercury: Is
There a Pure-Fusion Bomb for Sale?” International Defense Review,
June 1994, v. 27, no. 6, p. 79-81.
[14] Sam Cohen and Joe Douglass, “The
Nuclear Threat that Doesn’t Exist—or Does It?” March 11, 2003,
Financial Sense Online website, <http://www.financialsense.com/
editorials/douglass/2003/0311.htm>.
[15] “Nashestviye krasnoy rtuti,” Nedelya,
September 1992, No. 35, p. 10; NIS Nuclear Trafficking database, NTI
website, <http://nti.org/db/nistraff/1992/19920890.htm>.
[16] “Interpol Conference Views
Illegal Trade in Strategic Materials,” Rossiiskiye vesti, March
6, 1993; NIS Nuclear Trafficking database, NTI website, <http://nti.org/db/nistraff/1993/19930190.htm>.
[17] “Red Mercury Seen as a
‘Fiction Used in Money Laundering Scam.’ Major General Aleksandr
Gurov, director of the Security Ministry's Scientific Research Institute
of Security, said that ‘red mercury’ is a slang term for ‘oxide of
mercury’,” Pravda, July 1, 1993; NIS Nuclear Trafficking
database, NTI website, <http://nti.org/db/nistraff/1993/19930620.htm>.
[18] Aleksandr Chernyak, “Krasnaya
rtut,” Rossiiskaya gazeta, November 21, 1995, pp. 2-8; NIS
Nuclear Trafficking database, NTI website, <http://nti.org/db/nistraff/1995/19952230.htm>.
“Krasnaya rtut,” Markelov television program, July 15, 2001,
<http://www.markelov.tv/lost_7.html>.
[19] “Yeltsingate,” Pravda,
April 17, 1993, p. 3
[20] “Krasnaya rtut” [Red mercury],
Yadernyy Kontrol, June 1995, pp. 22-24; “'Fools’ Mercury,” The
Economist, May 22, 1993, p. 70, NIS Nuclear Trafficking database,
NTI website, <http://nti.org/db/nistraff/1993/19930490.htm>;
“Red Mercury is Hot, but the Question is: What Exactly Is It,” Wall
Street Journal, December 6, 1993, NIS Nuclear Trafficking database,
NTI website, <http://nti.org/db/nistraff/1993/19930990.htm>;
“Rtut tsveta partbileta,” Komsomolskaya pravda, April 30,
1993, p. 3; NIS Nuclear Trafficking database, NTI website, <http://nti.org/db/nistraff/1993/19930420.htm>.
[21] “Krasnaya rtut,” Markelov
television program, July 15, 2001, <http://www.markelov.tv/lost_7.html>;
“Red Mercury is Back in Business,” Intelligence Online, February 28,
2002; Lexis-Nexis Academic Universe, <http://lexis-nexis.com>.
[22] Sam Cohen and Joe Douglass, “The
Nuclear Threat that Doesn’t Exist—or Does It?” March 11, 2003,
Financial Sense Online website, <http://www.financialsense.com/editorials
/douglass/2003/0311.htm>.
[23] Aleksey Ilyich Khesin, Vladimir
Alekseyevich Vavilov, “Tayna ‘krasnoy rtuti,’” Natsionalnaya
bezopasnost i geopolitika Rossii [National Security and Geopolitics
of Russia], No. 7-8 (48-49), 2003; Moscow State Institute of Electronic
Technology website, <http://www.miee.ru/struct/44/Art6.htm>.
[24] “Osmium,” CRC Handbook of
Chemistry and Physics, Spectrum Laboratories website, <http://www.speclab.com/elements/osmium.htm>.
[25] “Special Nuclear Material,”
Nuclear Regulatory Commission website, <http://www.nrc.gov/
materials/sp-nucmaterials.html>; Commerce Control List, Supplement
No. 1 to Part 774, Index 1, Government Publishing Office website,
<http://w3.access.gpo.gov/bis/ear/pdf/indexccl.pdf>; Editor’s
Note: Osmium-185, osmium-191m, osmium-191, and osmium-193 are controlled
in the United States by Nuclear Regulatory Commission regulations.
[26] Boris Soldatenko, “Gde
‘vsplyvet’ chastnaya atomnaya bomba?" Argumenty i fakty,
No. 38, September 18, 2002, p. 12; in WPS Yadernyye materialy,
No. 32, September 27, 2002; NIS Nuclear Trafficking database, NTI
website, <http://www.nti.org/db/nistraff/2002/20020620.htm>.
[27] “Russian Parliamentarian Accuses
Kazakhstan of Illicit Production of Nuclear Material,” RFE/RL Newsline,
September 12, 2002, <http://www.rferl.org/
newsline/2002/09/120902.asp>.
[28] “Media Reports Claim Smuggled
Kazakhstani Osmium-187 Threatens Russia,” NIS Export Control
Observer, January 2003, p. 9, <http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/nisexcon/pdfs/ob_0301e.pdf>.
[29] Kuat Ibrayev, “Kazakhstan
oprovergayet obvineniya v nezakonnom eksporte osmiya-187” [Kazakhstan
refutes charges of illegal export of osmium-187], Panorama online
edition, No. 36, September 16-20, 2002, <http://www.panorama.kz/>.
[30] “U kontrabandistov izyali osmiy”
[Osmium seized from smugglers], Kommersant-daily online edition,
June 21, 2000, <http://www.online.ru>.
[31] “Smuggling of Rare-Earth Metals
into Russia Stopped,” Uzbek Television First Channel, December 24,
2001; Interfax; NIS Nuclear Trafficking database, NTI website,
<http://www.nti.org/db/nistraff/2001/20010690.htm>.
[32] “Russian Security Service
Thwarts Criminal Attempts to Sell Osmium-187, Counterfeit Iraqi
Money,” Associated Press, February 28, 2003, in Lexis-Nexis Academic
Universe, <http://www.lexis-nexis.com>.
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