Two people were detained after the discovery of tiles with ionizing radiation of the americium isotope near Plovdiv and Karlovo. This was announced at a briefing by the District Prosecutor's Office of Plovdiv.
They are charged with serious intentional crimes, which provide for up to 5 years in prison.
80 tiles were found. They were found in houses and cars near Plovdiv and Karlovo, bTV specified.
They were prepared for sale, and it was planned to charge 5,000 euros for a tile.
The arrested are over 60 years old and have commercial companies and are from Plovdiv. It is assumed that they were looking for a buyer, which is why they were taken out of the place where they were stored, said the District Prosecutor's Office.
A total of three men were searched and detained, and the ionizing radiation tiles found are dangerous and have already been handed over for safekeeping. They will be examined, the District Prosecutor's Office specified.
Earlier today, it was reported that a large amount of the extremely expensive metal americium was discovered during a secret operation by the District Prosecutor's Office in Plovdiv, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the state agency "National Security".
What is Americia?
Americium is a type of isotope that is stored under special conditions because of its ionizing radiation.
It is an artificially obtained radioactive chemical element - in 1944 by Glenn Seaborg of Berkeley, California, and his colleagues at the Metallurgical Laboratory of the University of Chicago, as part of the “Manhattan” project. This is clear from a publication of Columbia College in Chicago.
Americium is a hard metal with a silver-white color and white luster, malleable and spheroidal. It glows in the dark and is quite malleable. It melts at 1175 degrees Celsius. It darkens slowly in dry air at room temperature.
Americium can be used to make a nuclear weapon, although it is difficult to produce and requires the presence of plutonium.