Man arrested for allegedly stealing radioactive substance in Chiba

Thursday 08th May, 03:57 PM JST

CHIBA —

Police arrested a businessman Thursday on suspicion of stealing a container bearing a hazardous radioactive substance from a warehouse of his company’s larger business partner, a nondestructive testing company, in Chiba Prefecture, they said.

Tomonori Iso, 40, an executive official of a subcontractor firm under Non-Destructive Inspection Co, a leading nondestructive testing company, was quoted as telling investigators that he stole the container because of a lingering resentment against Non-Destructive Inspection. The suspect also said he broke the double-structure container in two and abandoned them at a port and in a river in Yokohama, according to the police.

Based on his confession, the police recovered the inner part of the container from the Takinokawa river in Yokohama, which contained a 2-millimeter-long, 2-mm-diameter metal substance that is believed to be iridium 192, they said. As the substance was shielded by water, there is little risk of radioactive exposure or river contamination, officials at the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology said.

5 Comments

smithinjapan at 06:04 PM JST - 8th May

What?????? He's not a foreign terrorist???? Gadzounds! (or however it's spelled)
capone at 06:16 PM JST - 8th May

gadzooks !!
DXXJP at 08:04 PM JST - 8th May

Yeah and when the theft was reported we had the terror screams for days here. Exactly like it was a Japanese taking it for some shady adventure.

Probably was going to sell it on a suicide site as bath beads are hard to come by these days
akuma1985 at 03:45 PM JST - 9th May

maybe did he was a sawada kenji's fan.

To smithinjapan

but in japan the terrorists are never foreigners.
some14some at 11:59 PM JST - 9th May

but in japan the terrorists are never foreigners

so they take clean finger-prints at the airports.

As usual govt/media is not concerned about such a serious incident.