Sting operations in Europe reveal how nuclear smugglers wanted to sell radioactive material to Islamic State who may be plotting dirty bomb attacks
Criminal organisations, some with ties to the Russian KGB's successor agency, are driving a thriving black market in nuclear materials in Balkans.
In the backwaters of Eastern Europe, authorities working with the FBI have interrupted four attempts in the past five years by gangs with suspected Russian connections that sought to sell radioactive material to Middle Eastern extremists, investigations have found.
The latest known case came in February this year, when a smuggler offered a huge cache of deadly cesium - enough to contaminate several city blocks - and specifically sought a buyer from the Islamic State group.
Criminal organisations, some with ties to the Russian KGB's successor agency, are driving a thriving black market in nuclear materials in the tiny and impoverished Eastern European country of Moldova, investigators say.
Moldovan police and judicial authorities shared investigative case files in an effort to spotlight how dangerous the nuclear black market has become.
They say the breakdown in cooperation between Russia and the West means it has become much harder to know whether smugglers are finding ways to move parts of Russia's vast store of radioactive materials - an unknown quantity of which has leached into the black market.
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"We can expect more of these cases," said Constantin Malic, a Moldovan police officer who investigated all four cases. "As long as the smugglers think they can make big money without getting caught, they will keep doing it."