RUSSIAN organised criminals with ties in Macau and Hong Kong have been smuggling material for nuclear arms, according to intelligence agencies.
Macau authorities believe a substance purporting to be a nuclear trigger, red mercury, was recently transferred to a Hong Kong ship by a man who controlled a Russian vice ring in the Portuguese enclave.
Investigators who have tracked the Russian prostitution trade in Macau said the man is a former Russian special services operative, Igor Deordienko.
Known as ''the closet'' for his imposing stature, he is widely feared by prostitutes in Macau after brutally beating several women, including a Colombian, according to sources.
In classified intelligence reports in Macau, another Russian who was involved in prostitution in the enclave, Vladimir Rippin, is named as Deordienko's suspected partner.
Rippin is a former KGB agent who served in Afghanistan and Beijing, according to Macau authorities. He has been questioned in the enclave about Russian prostitution since the murders in Vladivostok in late June of Hong Kong lawyer Gary Alderdice, QC, and his prostitute girlfriend Natalia Samofalova, who worked in Macau.