Russia Uranium Smugglers Arrested Friday, April 4, 1997 12:51 pm EST MOSCOW (AP) -- Police in western Siberia have arrested a group of criminals who planned to sell 11 pounds of radioactive uranium stolen from a plant in neighboring Kazakstan, authorities said Friday. The group stole the uranium-235 from the Ust-Kamenogorsk metallurgical plant in Kazakstan, said Dmitry Rybalin, a police spokesman in the Siberian city of Novosibirsk. The group planned to smuggle the uranium to Pakistan or China or sell it in Russia for $100,000, Rybalin said. It was not clear whether the uranium could be used for weapons. It takes at least several pounds of highly enriched uranium to make a nuclear weapon. Police did not say how many people were detained and no other details were immediately available. The breakup of the Soviet Union has caused concern about the security at nuclear facilities in the former republics, and there have been numerous cases involving the theft or sale of radioactive substances. However, officials in Russia and the other former republics say that weapons-grade material has not been stolen or sold. © Copyright 1997 The Associated Press