Bogus Company Gets Radioactives License

Bogus Company Gets Radioactives License

Thursday July 12, 2007 12:01 AM

By H. JOSEF HEBERT

Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - Congressional investigators set up
a bogus company with only a postal box and within a month
obtained a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission
that allowed them to buy enough radioactive material for
a small “dirty bomb.”

Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., who will ask the NRC about
the incident at a Senate hearing Thursday, said the sting
operation raises concerns about terrorists obtaining such
material just as easily.

Nobody at the NRC checked whether the company was
legitimate and an agency official even helped the
investigators fill out the application form, Coleman said in
an interview Wednesday.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission acknowledged that more
checking is needed in such licensing and said that since
being told of the GAO sting operation it has tightened
licensing procedures.

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