Trio try to sell 'nuke material' for Rs 150 crore

The Central Crime Branch police arrested three persons who went around cheating people by selling what they claimed was red mercury, used in preparation of nuclear bombs. The arrested are Manikanthan and Mohammed Haneef from Hosur, and Nagaraja of Hoskote, all real estate agents. While Nagaraja has a PG Diploma in ITI, the other two are high school dropouts. The CCB sleuths, posing as buyers, approached the trio. The latter asked the former to pay Rs. 150 crore for eight pounds of red mercury. They allegedly demanded Rs. 5 lakh for even showing a sample of the substance for verification. Finally when they showed it, it was inside a cylindrical block of aluminium. The trio told the ‘buyers’ that the substance could not be taken out as it would explode. Then they showed the sleuths a power point presentation on a laptop, which included some test reports of a U.S.-based lab. The police said the trio allegedly told buyers that red mercury was obtained by the LTTE from the erstwhile Soviet Union. But after the death of LTTE leader Prabhakaran, the mercury was brought to India by a few former LTTE cadres. However, when the cylindrical block sample was tested at the Atomic Mineral Department, there was no radiation following which it was cut open. The police said it turned out to be a regular aluminium block weighing 8.9 kg worth Rs. 7,500. The trio claimed that the fraud was planned by another associate Jay Singh, who is absconding. -The Hindu