Hypothetically, if I had a stash of uranium in my back yard, how would I go about selling it on the black market? I mean, I can’t just put up a sign advertising it - if I want to stay out of jail very long. So how would I make connections?
- Selling it to whom? I wasn’t aware there was a market for uranium.
- How would you know how much to charge?
- When you say “uranium”, do you mean “unrefined ore”, or “enriched plutonium” as required to make bombs?
I suppose that it would be like selling anything else on the black market. Say you’ve come into possession of a truckload of TV sets. How would you move them? Answer: You’d contact a person known as a “fence”, he’d give you a fraction of what they were worth, and then he’d resell them to someone else.
So I think your biggest problem would be to find a “fence” who handles uranium (or plutonium). I have absolutely no clue how you’d go about that, but I will mention that in the movies, when they have something “hot” they need to “fence”, what they do is, they “put the word out on the street”. Baretta used to do this all the time–he’d tell Rooster or somebody, “Put the word out on the street…” So, I suggest you go check the TV listings and see who’s carrying it in syndication, watch a few shows, maybe you can pick up some hints.
But I don’t think a cockatoo is required.
Your best bet is to call (202) 324-3000. They’ll be able to set you right up.
Just for some clarification here…
Both uranium and plutonium (two separate elements) can and have been used in nuclear warheads and in nuclear fuel. However, both of them must be processed, refined, and enriched to be worth anything. The processes to enrich the two elements are very similar for each element, but differs depending on whether you plan on harnessing energy or destroying cities.
In the normal processing, you will not produce plutonium out of uranium. However, after the uranium has been used in energy production, it can then be further processed to create a miniscule amount of plutonium.
As for selling it. Be aware that even joking about it on the internet could lead to a very deep investigation into who you are and where you are. Also be aware that we can trace e-mails and posts through the internet to locate the sender. As such I would suggest that you keep the stuff pretty much to yourself.
I understand your concerns, but it’s a really sad day - in fact the entire end of free speech - when we can’t post about things like this on the Internet. It’s up to forums like this to pioneer free speech and information.
Many controversial things are posted about here, often ones that are hugely illegal in many countries. But knowing how to commit what is considered by some to be a crime, or could be used for a crime, is not the same as committing it.
Imagine you wanted to write a techno-thriller about black-market uranium sales, or a film-script. Wouldn’t this, or the internet in general, be one of the best places to ask for information?
If we are scared off from even making jokes about these things, then ultimately the terrorists have won, because they have changed our culture and society to one of fear, repression and censorship.
What does it have to do with specific incidents? There is no valid reason (other than idle curiosity) for any private individual and nearly all organizations to have any rationale for knowing this stuff.
so, is making nuclear bombs the only market there is for uranium? why can’t it just be sold as a paper weight or something a little more functional?
Is there any reason you couldn’t name this thread?
Who’s that? FBI or CIA?
J.
Just click on the link, dese. No one will jump through your computer and take you away, I promise. (Or you could just “hover” over the link with your cursor and read off the URL down on the bottom of the screen, at least with Internet Explorer.)
“Gosh darn it, if we can’t post detailed contact information on message boards for international terrorist organizations seeking weapons of mass destruction, then the terrorists will have won!”
A problem is that, unlike a question like “Hypothetically, how could I dispose of a dead body?”, the nature of the question isn’t really one which can be answered in any great detail on a hypothetical basis, beyond saying what Duck Duck Goose said (“Find a fence who deals in plutonium and uranium”). Even if any of us knew how to contact an international terrorist group and/or nuclear materials fence, terrorist groups and fences whose whereabouts are a matter of public record tend to be out of business in short order. It’s the difference between “Hypothetically, if I wanted to ‘get rid’ of someone, how could I do it?”–Answer: “Gee, I dunno, I guess you could hire a hitman or something”–and “Anyone know any good hitmen in the Atlanta, Georgia, area?” Any would-be thriller writers will simply have to invent plausible-sounding details on their own, probably the vaguer the better (from a purely literary point of view):
I dunno. I guess you could go the “rogue state” route. Just drop by the embassies of certain Foreign Powers and do a little cold-calling. Of course, the Foreign Powers which would be most interested in this sort of thing tend not to have embassies in the United States, but you might be able to hook up with them in some third country, or perhaps through their United Nations representation in New York.
What makes you think the black market is interested in your uranium? It’s not exactly difficult to get your hands on it. Uranium is a naturally-occurring element that exists in great quantities in pitchblende ore. Depending on where you live, it’s entirely possible that you have a sizeable amount of pitchblende in your back yard.
I think in theory uranium is supposed to be tightly controlled - they only let certain people buy or sell it.
When I was living in Knoxville TN there was a controversy because Oak Ridge Labs could not account for all the uranium they were supposed to have. The first explanation was that some of the missing amount was just “stuck in pipes” all over the factory as part of the normal processing. I don’t know if they ever did determine exactly how much was missing and where it went to. But the government was not very happy knowing that some of it was not accounted for. The lab was run by a private company for the DOE.
If it happened to be a lump of uranium 235 (the rare, bomb grade stuff), you had a big enough lump for a bomb, you had a lead box to carry it in so you didn’t get radiation poisoning, and you kept the pieces seperate so that it didn’t go critical, I am sure someone like Osama bin Laden or Saddam Hussein would like to get hold of it. However, Im sure most terrorist groups wouldn’t go anywhere near it, mainly because they haven’t any idea how to make a bomb.
Royjwood, the processes for refining uranium and plutonium are very different. Bomb grade uranium (isotope 235 (approx. 0.7 % of all uranium) is very rare. Other isotopes (mainly 238) make up the majority. To obtain 235 they centrifuge uranium at high speeds (or using a calutron [a sort of mass spectrometer], a much faster, though energy intensive process).
Plutonium is easier to produce, and quicker, which is why the first atomic bomb was a plutonium bomb (Nicknamed Trinity, it was tested a month before Little Boy was dropped [which, oddly, was an uranium bomb]). However, a plutonium bomb is much harder to make (I am thinking in terms of amateur terrorists), as it requires the implosion method of bomb assembly, which is more complicated, wheras the uranium bomb requires only the ‘gun’ method, whereby one lump of uranium is fired at high speed into the other lump (both creating the critical mass).
Hum, this isn’t quite what I was expecting. Let me rephrase the OP.
“Hypothetically, if I had a pile of any illegal substance that had a market, in general, how would one go about meeting people?”
One would post to illegal web sites. Not legal ones.