Given President Bush's heightened security at the border, this is good news.
I'm so reassured.
Posted on 05/29/2002 11:51:59 AM PDT by The Energizer
APNewsAlert
MEXICO CITY Seventy drums of sodium cyanide found dumped in central Mexico, officials say.
FWIW, even if this is true this time do they have all of it? A dozen bricks could still cause problems.
Associated Press Writer
MEXICO CITY (AP) Mexico's defense department announced that 70 drums of sodium cyanide were found Wednesday near a dirt road in central Mexico apparently part of a stolen shipment of the highly poisonous chemical that officials have been seeking for 18 days.
A policeman discovered the drums in the early morning hours outside the city of Honey, Puebla, 80 miles north of Mexico City, said the city's secretary, Juvencio Miranda.
Miranda said when he visited the site, he saw between 60 and 64 blue, 220-pound drums of cyanide that had been dumped a few yards off a dirt road.
``You can see that they tossed them out and they are all turned over,'' he said, adding at least two were open.
The Defense Department later issued a statement saying 70 containers had been recovered and that they were similar to those stolen.
Mexican and U.S. officials were alarmed by the May 10 hijacking of a truck carrying 96 such drums of cyanide roughly 10 tons.
Twenty of the drums were found abandoned with the truck on May 16. Honey is a mountainous town about 25 miles northwest of the spot where the truck was found and about 75 miles east of where it was stolen.
Army troops along with federal, state and municipal authorities sealed off the area and water supplies to Honey were cut as a precaution.
Mexican authorities had mounted a large search for the cyanide and U.S. anti-terrorism officials had alerted customs and state agencies to watch for the blue drums.
There have been reports from New Zealand and Italy of cyanide threats against U.S. embassies in the wake of the Sept. 11 terror attacks on New York and Washington.
The driver of the cyanide truck, Juan Carlos Alberto Lopez, was under guarded house arrest in Pachuca, Hidalgo's capital, about 55 miles north of Mexico City.
Lopez admitted to improperly leaving the main highway to take a shortcut, a secondary road toward the company that sells the cyanide, Degussa Mexico. He said he stopped also against regulations to help men in an apparently disabled car. He said those men pulled guns on him and stole his truck.
We're not out of the woods yet.
truck carrying 96 such drums of cyanide
Twenty of the drums were found abandoned with the truck on May 16
70 drums of sodium cyanide were found Wednesday
Where are the remaining 6 drums?
But can we believe Mexico? And did they recover all of it?
Rock Creek Park?
Mexican police find stolen cyanide lorry but barrels are missing
Mexican police have found a stolen lorry carrying 10 tons of sodium cyanide, but one drum containing the deadly chemical had been opened and most of the others are missing.
The Environmental Ministry has urged border agents to take extra precautions to ensure that large amounts of the chemical aren't smuggled out of the country.
But officials called the alert "precautionary" and said there was no evidence any sodium cyanide had left Mexico or that it could be used in a terrorist attack.
Authorities cordoned off the area around Zacatlan where the truck was discovered, 120 miles northwest of Mexico City.
Health officials found no evidence of contamination in the area.
Only 13 out of the 96 drums were still inside the truck and local authorities are investigating the whereabouts of the missing chemicals by interviewing people who live near where the truck was discovered.
No one has been arrested in connection with the truck robbery, which took place last Friday. Police are seeking information about three armed men who authorities believe stole the vehicle based on witness accounts.
Sodium cyanide is used in gold and silver mining. If inhaled or ingested, it attacks the nervous system and can cause a person to suffocate within minutes.
Although most of the dangerous chemicals have not been accounted for, Frederico Perez, director of police in neighbouring Hidalgo state, said it was unlikely that the robbers would use them in any kind of terrorist attack in Mexico or the United States.
Most likely, the men absconded with the drums without even realising that dangerous chemicals were inside, he said.
Story filed: 02:58 Friday 17th May 2002
http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_589704.html?menu=
But just the fact that 70 drums were found dumped leads me to believe that they were never in the hands of terrorists. They would want every last bit for maximum damage.
It sounds like some random truck hijackers suddenly realized that their booty had them in way over their heads.
Given President Bush's heightened security at the border, this is good news.
I'm so reassured.
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