6 pointsby austinallegro5 hours ago1 comment
  • orbital-decay2 hours ago
    >It also tackled illegal immigration, war criminals in Bosnia, those behind 9/11 and other terrorist plots, as well as the Russian black market in weapons-grade plutonium.

    Ah, the "25kg of Pu-239 in a closet" guy. [1] That was a hoax, not even a scam he fell to but a deliberate fake entirely made up by him.

    [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hV-b3gItZn4

    • GJiman hour ago
      Please don't quote lies from the News of the Screws.

      Roger Cook was exonerated and the claims retracted by the Murdoch gutter press.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cook_Report#News_of_the_Wo...

      • orbital-decay23 minutes ago
        I'm not quoting anyone, and being extremely familiar with the era in question, I do not believe the ITC, regardless of what evidence they had. That episode is a ludicrous, physically impossible hoax filmed with a "concealed" camera that contradicts everything that was ever known about nuclear arms control at that time (yes I know about Project Sapphire), internal struggle between siloviki, KGB leftovers' disarray in early 90's, and especially the Solntsevskaya gang itself. Every single illegal activity on that scale at that time was uncovered in the Russian press and countless documentaries were filmed about those, but this case didn't even have any smoke. Suspicion that they fell for a scam (rampant in 1993) doesn't align with a well funded investigation, I have zero doubts they just pulled everything out of their asses and outright faked it, hiring the actors, possibly even from the gang itself. Things like this were charitably called "cranberries" in 90's lingo, only outsiders could believe something like this.