A French Sunday newspaper has reported that Parisian police have arrested three men following the discovery of a tiny quantity of enriched uranium, which can be used to make nuclear weapons.
French nuclear authorities notified police last week about radioactivity emanating from a van in Paris, according to a report in Le Journal du Dimanche.
Police found five grams of enriched uranium 235 encased in a glass bulb and stored in a lead cylinder, the newspaper said.
Three people suspected of holding the uranium as a sample for a potential buyer were jailed.The report identified two men from Cameroon and a Frenchman who recently left prison after a fraud conviction.
A spokesman at Paris police headquarters said no one was available to comment during the weekend.
According to the newspaper, police have opened an inquiry, and Judge Francoise Travaillot has been assigned to the case. France's internal security agency is closely following the affair, the report said.
France's Atomic Energy Commission is studying the sample to find out where it originated. About 10 kilograms (22 pounds) of the radioactive substance would be needed to build a nuclear bomb, according to an engineer with the agency who was quoted in the article.
AP