Crime Really Doesn’t Pay

Today’s Washington Post posted a follow-up on the story of the theft in Mexico of a truckload of radioactive material used for the treatment of diseases. The truck has been found, and the radioactive material has been found.

The article reports:

The prospect that material that could be used in a radioactive dirty bomb had gone missing sparked an urgent two-day hunt that concluded when the material, cobalt-60, used in hospital radiotherapy machines, was found Wednesday afternoon along with the stolen Volkswagen truck. Mexican officials said no public health risk remained.

It is quite likely that the thieves had no idea what they were stealing. The article also reports that the material was removed from its protective casing, and it is quite likely that the thieves will die fairly quickly because of their exposure to the radiation. It will not be a pleasant death, and it actually seems as if their death will be a rather harsh penalty for stealing a truck.

This event brings up some interesting questions. Now that this story has been made public and it is known that the truck did not have a GPS tracking device and that it was relatively easy to hijack the truck, what happens next? Any fairly intelligent terrorist could easily duplicate the actions of these thieves (leaving the radioactive material in its casing, of course) and get it across America’s porous southern border. Not all the people coming into America across our southern border are South Americans looking for work (see rightwinggranny.com).

If America does not secure its southern border, we can expect a dirty bomb attack in one of our major cities based on things terrorists will be able to learn from this event. Let’s hope and pray that they are not paying attention.

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