Sting on Japanese Mob Boss Highlights Atomic Trafficking Threat
- Law enforcement officials convene UN nuclear watchdog meeting
- Data show that while malign trafficking down, margins are thin
The IAEA logo at the agency's headquarters in Vienna, Austria.
Photographer: Alex Halada/AFP/Getty ImagesWhen US prosecutors charged a Japanese mobster this year with conspiring to traffic nuclear-weapons material to an Iranian general, they exposed one piece of a shadowy international network that continues to preoccupy security officials.
Investigators convene Monday at the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna to assess how organized crime networks are still able to buy and sell fissile material that’s slipped outside of regulatory controls.