The FBI has helped moldova thwart attempts to smuggle radiological materials to Middle Eastern extremists on four occasions in the past five years, but the threat from such activities is far from under control in the region, a recent Associated Press investigation has found. "Criminal organizations, some with ties to the Russian KGB's successor agency [the Federal Security Service, or FSB], are driving a thriving black market in nuclear materials in the tiny and impoverished Eastern European country," an October 7 AP report on the investigation stated. In one case described in the report, Moldovan authorities investigated a group (led by an individual believed to be an officer with the FSB) that tried to arrange the sale of bomb-grade uranium, along with blueprints for a radiological dispersal device (RDD), to a man from Sudan. In the most recent case, in February of this year, a would-be smuggler specifically sought a buyer from the Islamic State for a large amount of cesium-enough, according to the report, to contaminate several city blocks if used in an RDD. The report also said that a number of wiretapped conversations exposed plots targeting the United States.
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