Nuclear Truck Stolen In Mexico

[ChillDoubt]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-25212648

Let's hope this has been taken by an opportunist, as opposed to someone who could get some or all of it over the border into the USA as part of a 'dirty bomb'.

[ChillDoubt]

Apologies, OP headline should have said radioactive, not nuclear.
The updated link would suggest that someone has indeed been an opportunistic thief and have stolen what is probably an image intensifier (X ray machine), though this sort of scenario has been feared in the former USSR by European Security Services for some time.
Hopefully any would-be Jihadists haven't changed tack and moved elsewhere to get the materials required.

[jake-the-peg]

Well there's radioactive and radioactive

Depending on the machine type but technetium is a common medical radioisotope it's not the sort of thing you want to put under your pillow but it's not weapons grade plutonium!

Dirty bombs are more of a threat psychologically - If you explode something like that you'll probably kill a few people in the blast have a slight increased risk of cancer for those exposed, create an expensive clean-up operation and have thousands killed in a panic stampede!

But you can buy radio-isotopes in the US over the internet

http://unitednuclear.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=2_5

$230.00 include Polonium 210 if you fancy poisoning a secret agent!

[keyplus90]

About that substance, I would take Jake's words as he is the man with knowledge when it comes to science. But as for the dirty bomb, all the American people have to do is keep an eye on CIA and they would be fine.

[ChillDoubt]

It doesn't need to be weapons grade to form the nasty component of a dirty bomb.
The effects on the local civilian population would be as much psychological as anything else.
You don't need to blow people to bits to cause panic, fear and terror.

[jake-the-peg]

Absolutely

But you hardly have to smuggle it from Mexico when you can order radioactive source on-line!