The greatest desire of radical Islam is the ability to hold the world hostage with nuclear weapons. Muslims in all parts of the world are actively searching for the resources and technology to make this nightmare a reality. Additional story from The National Post on same issue is here.
from CNEWS -TORONTO – A Toronto man is facing charges after allegedly trying to send nuclear technology to Iran, a country under intense international pressure to curtail its nuclear ambitions because of fears it wants to produce a bomb.
The RCMP, after a joint eight-week investigation with the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security, allege Mahmoud Yadegari tried to procure and export pressure transducers, which are used in the production of enriched uranium.
The UN Security Council banned exports of nuclear-related technology to Iran in 2006 because of what it considers efforts to build nuclear weapons.
The transducers, which are hand-sized, have a legitimate commercial use, the RCMP said, but they can also be used for military purposes.
“They’re critical components used in a larger device in order to enrich uranium for weapons grade product,” RCMP Insp. Greg Johnson said at a news conference Friday.
The man purchased ten of the transducers from a Boston-area company for about $1,100 each, the RCMP said. Police declined to release the name of the U.S. company that sold the transducers or the name of the company owned by Yadegari, who police said is a Toronto businessman in his mid-30s.
The police said the man set off suspicions with the Boston-area firm when he said he planned to ship the transducers to Toronto and then on to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.
“We have evidence to support the fact that its ultimate destination was Iran,” said Johnson.
It’s alleged Yadegari took steps to conceal the identification of the transducers so he could export them overseas without the required export permits.
Yadegari is charged under the Customs Act and Export Import Permits Act, and is also accused of violating U.N. sanctions on Iran. He is a Canadian citizen who emigrated from Iran in 1998, and is in custody awaiting a bail hearing next week, police said.
Penalties under the Export Act alone include fines of up to $1,000,000 and up to 10 years in prison.
Iran insists it is enriching uranium to produce nuclear energy for civilian purposes, but the United States and some European countries accuse Tehran of secretly seeking to build nuclear weapons.
Iran has all of the components and required materials for a bomb, said George Webb of the Canada Border Services Agency.
“What they have to do is take it and enrich that material to a very high level,” said Webb. “I don’t personally believe that they are there yet. However, they’re very, very, very close.”
Project American Shield, a program run by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement branch of Homeland Security, has agents meeting with manufacturers of technologies that can be used in nuclear production in order to alert them to suspicious purchases by foreigners.
“We make them aware of red-flag indicators of suspicious activity and what they should do when they encounter suspicious inquiry from abroad,” said the ICE’s Tim Gildea.
Those suspicious indicators include someone looking to pay cash, and probably too high a price for the technology, expressing an urgent need for the material or proposing a circuitous shipping route.
The charges against Yadegari follow an investigation by the RCMP, Canada Customs agents, The Dept. of Foreign Affairs and Homeland Security.
In February, U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration said it would seek to end Iran’s nuclear ambition and its support for terrorism.
That drew an immediate rebuke from Iran’s envoy to the United Nations, who said Iran has never and will never try to acquire nuclear weapons.