Conversation

The Doomsday Scam (Published 2015)

Rumors of the incredible properties of the supposedly Soviet-developed "red mercury" appear to have emerged sometime in the late 1970s, and they persist to this day (read

@cjchivers

' excellent piece on how ISIS was trying to get its hands on it): nytimes.com/2015/11/22/mag /2

nytimes.com

For decades, aspiring bomb makers — including ISIS — have desperately tried to get their hands on a lethal substance called red mercury. There’s a reason that they never have.

Well, amid the Soviet collapse, hucksters in Russia & elsewhere sought to cash in on these rumors by marketing "red mercury" to gullible foreign buyers. In the early 90s, one caught the eye of St. Petersburg's External Relations Committee, led by one Vladimir Putin. /2

Putin had been appointed committee head in June 1991 by his old law professor, St. Petersburg Mayor Anatoly Sobchak, under whom he studied before joining the KGB. (He quickly came under fire for shady barter deals that cost the city $100M: rferl.org/a/putin-corrup) /3

Within 5 months after Putin took the helm, his committee formed a company together with a US-Russian joint venture called Alkor Technologies to produce and export red mercury (which doesn't exist). An Alkor exec predicted profits of $1 billion: kommersant.ru/doc/1124 /4

The Alkor exec said the partnership with Putin's committee would grant "legal protection" for the company's "invention." Alkor said it had potential buyers ready to pay $300k/400k per kilogram. Alas, its product turned out to be less than revolutionary. /5

In November 1991, a Foreign Economic Relations Ministry official asked the state licensing agency to allow Alkor to export 400 kilograms of red mercury to Hungary. He attached an analysis of Alkor's red mercury by the Soviet Academy of Sciences. /6

The chemical analysis was probably less than thrilling for Alkor & Putin's peeps. It found Alkor's product was ordinary mercury pyroantimonate - which is sometimes called "red mercury" because of its red hue - and "does not have military applications." /7

So benign was Alkor's product that the licensing committee said permission to export wasn't even needed. But that didn't deter Putin's committee. In January 1992, Putin's deputy appealed to the state licensing committee asking for an export license for Alkor's "red mercury." /8

The following month was quite monumental for "red mercury" matters in Russia. President Boris Yeltsin issued a secret decree allowing a company run by a colorful con man named Oleg Sadykov to export red mercury. /9

But when Sadykov had his "red mercury" analyzed at a customs laboratory ahead of possible export, the results found it was just ordinary metallic mercury and mercury oxide, which gave the compound a brick-red color. /10

The same month as Yeltsin's secret decree for Sadykov's company, the U.S. Department of Energy issued a flier warning that attempts to sell a substance called "red mercury" were simply scams. /11

Later that year, Russian Vice President Alexander Rutskoi led a special commission alleging that all kinds of shady stuff was being done under the guise of "red mercury" deals. His commission called red mercury "the last great swindle of the 20th century." /12