How to Buy Nukes on the Black Market

In Bulgaria, you can buy a nuclear warhead if you have enough money to pay for it.

Vice media captures a story of a Bulgarian black market dealer, Ivanov — a black market dealer who was approached by Osama Bin Laden to build a nuclear waste plant in Pakistan. After realizing that nuclear waste plant was just a front to legally gather nuclear waste for a bomb, Ivanov admits that he then offered to get the real thing, or dirty bomb, for Bin Laden.

 

Here is the full interview with Ivanov:

Often made from nuclear waste, dirty bomb consists of traditional explosives with radioactive material. Its main goal is to contaminate the area with radiation rather than to destroy. And because of its mobility and accessibility, even ISIS is trying to get their hands on one.

How do we stop them from getting it? Nobody knows. What we know for a fact, however, is that the spread of capitalism is backfiring on us. Black market embodies the core value of free market. Where there is demand, there will be supply. In such atmosphere, it is dangerously easy for these dealers to gain power and possibly accumulate enough wealth to become an influential non-state actor. Who knows? We might find our generation’s Pablo Escobar in Bulgaria selling missiles instead of cocaine. Or a group of black market weapon brokers might start lobbying terrorists in order to create their own version of military-industrial complex, profiting from the sales of unregistered, untraceable weapons.

Chances are still very slim. After all, terrorists, too, understand the severity of using a nuclear weapon.  However, we should all be aware and alarmed that terrorists have been putting an active effort into building and buying these terrifying weapons.

If you would like to read more about it, click here.