US arrests man 'with uranium for Iran in shoes'

A man was arrested in New York City's international airport with uranium destined for Iran hidden in the soles of his shoes, the US Justice Department said.

Patrick Campbell, 33, who was arrested Wednesday as he arrived at the John F Kennedy airport from Paris, is accused of trying to act as an intermediary to sell Iran 1,000 tons of purified uranium, in violation of US law.

The Sierra Leone-based Campbell had been under surveillance since May 2012, when he responded to an ad on the site Alibaba.com by someone looking to buy uranium 308, or yellow cake.

The buyer was actually an undercover US immigration officer.

Asked to supply 1,000 tons of uranium -- disguised with other types of ore to escape detection -- Campbell promised to ship the product, disguised as chromite, from Sierra Leone to the port of Bandar Abbas in Iran.

In the course of numerous conversations over telephone, Skype and email, Campbell claimed to be linked to a company that sold uranium, gold, diamonds, and chromite at the border of Liberia and Sierra Leone, according to the indictment.


[link to news.yahoo.com]