Three men have been held in Ukraine for allegedly trying to sell radioactive material that could be used to make a "dirty bomb", security officials say.
The politician and two businessmen were held on 9 April in the Ternopil region.
The SBU security service said they were trying to sell what they thought was 3.672kg (8.2lb) of plutonium-239 for $10m (£6.7m).
However, authorities now say the material was not plutonium-239 and are working to determine what it is.
The material was likely to be americium, a radioactive metal element with a variety of industrial uses, the Associated Press news agency said, citing unidentified security experts.
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more:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7998875.stmI'm half expecting this to turn out to be a fraud -- probably sellers "salted" a sample with enough radioactivity to set off a detector, and sold it as the real deal to someone who couldn't tell the difference. OTOH, it could be something dangerously radioactive that really could be made into a "dirty" bomb, regardless of the actual isotope(s) involved.
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