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Tycoon foils ‘nuclear bomb sale’ plot
David Leppard
THE London-based Russian billionaire Boris Berezovsky has claimed that the intelligence services helped to foil a plot by Chechen terrorists to sell a nuclear device on the international black market.
Berezovsky last week described the curious events that led to him tipping off the authorities about the plot.
The exiled Russian oligarch, who according to The Sunday Times Rich List is the 14th richest man in Britain, said that he had contacted British and American intelligence after being approached by a Chechen at his home in Surrey.
The Chechen said he was acting as an intermediary for a man who wanted to sell a nuclear bomb concealed in a suitcase for $3m (£1.6m).
The tycoon arranged for a member of his staff to meet the Chechen at the Bristol hotel in Paris. The two-hour meeting was taped on Berezovsky’s instructions and the tycoon handed the tape to the CIA at the American embassy in London.
A senior Whitehall security official confirmed that MI5 was aware that Berezovsky had approached the authorities on several occasions “offering to assist in investigations into the supply of illicit nuclear and radiological materials”.
“He has made these allegations to the authorities in private, but we can’t discuss the details,” the official said.
After the Beslan school siege last month, for which Shamil Basayev, the Chechen warlord, claimed responsibility, the possibility that rebels in the breakaway republic may be able to acquire a small nuclear device is causing alarm among senior officials in Moscow and the West.
Two years ago American officials revealed their fears that Chechen rebels had stolen radioactive materials, possibly including plutonium, from a Russian nuclear power station in the southern region of Rostov.
The disappearance of the materials from the Volgodoskaya nuclear power station, near the city of Rostov-on-Don, heightened fears that weapons-grade material, including caesium, strontium and low-enriched uranium. had been obtained by Chechen terrorists.
The theft was reported by Russian officials to the International Atomic Energy Agency, which told the US energy department. Speaking for the first time about the plot, Berezovsky said that he had been approached in 2002 by a Chechen living in Paris whom he knew as Zakhar.
The Russian tycoon had previously helped Zakhar by giving him $5,000 when the two men were in exile in Paris. He said: “I didn’t hear from him again until he rang me when I was in England and said he had enormous, very important information about nuclear weapons.
“I informed the American embassy in London. I told them it could be serious or it could be a provocation.” Berezovsky asked Yuli Dubov, a business associate and fellow exile, to investigate the background to the plot. Dubov said that Zakhar had claimed that the portable bomb was one of several made by Soviet scientists during the early 1990s.
“One of them disappeared during the mess of the early 1990s,” Dubov wrote in a report. “The person who holds this suitcase with a bomb wants to sell it and he (Zakhar) is empowered to act for him.
“Zakhar approached Berezovsky. The price asked for it is not large, only $3m. The idea is that Berezovsky pays $3m and advises on whom the A-bomb should be delivered (to). Zakhar will then organise everything in the best possible way.”
During a subsequent meeting, arranged at the behest of the CIA in London, Zakhar was asked by Berezovsky’s aide to provide evidence that the nuclear device existed. But Zakhar, by this time suspecting a trap, failed to do so. Berezovsky said that he reported the matter to British intelligence through an intermediary.
That was end of the affair, as far as Berezovsky was aware. It could have been a hoax and he does not know whether the intelligence services tried to retrieve the nuclear device. The plot is the latest in a series of strange incidents to involve Berezovsky, who was granted political asylum by David Blunkett, the home secretary, last year.
Once Russia’s most influential tycoon, Berezovsky, 58, has a £1.8 billion fortune and recently bought a Surrey estate for £10m from Chris Evans, the radio DJ. He was forced to flee Russia after falling out with President Vladimir Putin.
David Leppard
THE London-based Russian billionaire Boris Berezovsky has claimed that the intelligence services helped to foil a plot by Chechen terrorists to sell a nuclear device on the international black market.
Berezovsky last week described the curious events that led to him tipping off the authorities about the plot.
The exiled Russian oligarch, who according to The Sunday Times Rich List is the 14th richest man in Britain, said that he had contacted British and American intelligence after being approached by a Chechen at his home in Surrey.
The Chechen said he was acting as an intermediary for a man who wanted to sell a nuclear bomb concealed in a suitcase for $3m (£1.6m).
The tycoon arranged for a member of his staff to meet the Chechen at the Bristol hotel in Paris. The two-hour meeting was taped on Berezovsky’s instructions and the tycoon handed the tape to the CIA at the American embassy in London.
A senior Whitehall security official confirmed that MI5 was aware that Berezovsky had approached the authorities on several occasions “offering to assist in investigations into the supply of illicit nuclear and radiological materials”.
“He has made these allegations to the authorities in private, but we can’t discuss the details,” the official said.
After the Beslan school siege last month, for which Shamil Basayev, the Chechen warlord, claimed responsibility, the possibility that rebels in the breakaway republic may be able to acquire a small nuclear device is causing alarm among senior officials in Moscow and the West.
Two years ago American officials revealed their fears that Chechen rebels had stolen radioactive materials, possibly including plutonium, from a Russian nuclear power station in the southern region of Rostov.
The disappearance of the materials from the Volgodoskaya nuclear power station, near the city of Rostov-on-Don, heightened fears that weapons-grade material, including caesium, strontium and low-enriched uranium. had been obtained by Chechen terrorists.
The theft was reported by Russian officials to the International Atomic Energy Agency, which told the US energy department. Speaking for the first time about the plot, Berezovsky said that he had been approached in 2002 by a Chechen living in Paris whom he knew as Zakhar.
The Russian tycoon had previously helped Zakhar by giving him $5,000 when the two men were in exile in Paris. He said: “I didn’t hear from him again until he rang me when I was in England and said he had enormous, very important information about nuclear weapons.
“I informed the American embassy in London. I told them it could be serious or it could be a provocation.” Berezovsky asked Yuli Dubov, a business associate and fellow exile, to investigate the background to the plot. Dubov said that Zakhar had claimed that the portable bomb was one of several made by Soviet scientists during the early 1990s.
“One of them disappeared during the mess of the early 1990s,” Dubov wrote in a report. “The person who holds this suitcase with a bomb wants to sell it and he (Zakhar) is empowered to act for him.
“Zakhar approached Berezovsky. The price asked for it is not large, only $3m. The idea is that Berezovsky pays $3m and advises on whom the A-bomb should be delivered (to). Zakhar will then organise everything in the best possible way.”
During a subsequent meeting, arranged at the behest of the CIA in London, Zakhar was asked by Berezovsky’s aide to provide evidence that the nuclear device existed. But Zakhar, by this time suspecting a trap, failed to do so. Berezovsky said that he reported the matter to British intelligence through an intermediary.
That was end of the affair, as far as Berezovsky was aware. It could have been a hoax and he does not know whether the intelligence services tried to retrieve the nuclear device. The plot is the latest in a series of strange incidents to involve Berezovsky, who was granted political asylum by David Blunkett, the home secretary, last year.
Once Russia’s most influential tycoon, Berezovsky, 58, has a £1.8 billion fortune and recently bought a Surrey estate for £10m from Chris Evans, the radio DJ. He was forced to flee Russia after falling out with President Vladimir Putin.
