Minister: Mafia Has Nuclear Spare Parts

VALLETTA, Malta -- Russia's mafia gangs have got hold of some spare parts from the nuclear industry but have not yet managed to gain access to the most sensitive material, Justice Minister Yury Kalmykov said Tuesday. "Different spare parts from nuclear technology are in the hands of organized crime in Europe via Russia, but not the technology itself. That is safe," Kalmykov said."There is proof organized crime is trying to lay its hands on oil, gold and of course on nuclear products also," Kalmykov said. He did not specify which parts were in mafia hands. Last week, a German intelligence official was quoted as saying Russian gangsters had gained access to the key technology necessary to build nuclear weapons which they could use for international blackmail. Bernd Schmidbauer, the state secretary in charge of the BND intelligence agency, said Western governments believe nuclear gangsters may soon be able to ignite small warheads. The director of the FBI, Louis Freeh, said last month that he feared Russian criminal gangs might be able to acquire nuclear weapons and sell them to terrorists. Kalmykov dismissed the claim by Schmidbauer as a "fantasy."The Russian minister, in Malta for a two-day international conference on corruption, said his country's nascent democracy was threatened by organized crime, but said new laws about to be introduced would help contain it. He said "the astronomical sum" of $1 billion a day in foreign currency was flowing out of Russia both illegally and legally."Businessmen in the private sector are afraid for Russia's stability and so legally they put their money in local banks which then transfer it abroad," he said. "But then in the black economy, money made by illegally selling our national resources is simply not staying in Russia, and just going to foreign banks," Kalmykov said. Crime has soared in Moscow in recent weeks as a bloody battle for power amongst underworld clans has broken into the open. A draft law passing through the Russian parliament would release more than 5 trillion rubles for the fight against the mafia, with some 375,000 new police being taken on around the country, the minister said in the interview. Freeh of the FBI will visit Moscow next month, Itar-Tass said, for talks that seem certain to look at ways of stopping nuclear weapons falling into criminal hands. The news agency gave no details of his July 2-5 visit beyond saying he would meet Interior Minister Viktor Yerin and the director of the Federal Counter-Intelligence Service, Sergei Stepashin.The FBI will soon open a Moscow office to work with the Russians on international crime control.