The Megatons to Megawatts program was not only a failure for the way that the propaganda wanted it to be, but also in the fact criminals got involved. These men took money as bribes from companies trying to get some of the action of transporting all the uranium that was being moved. These men were caught, but they made the FBI mad by not helping them get bigger fish. This was the world of the program that was meant to lessen the nuclear threat.
The scheme
Tenex was the government owned Russian company that took care of all things Megatons to Megawatts for the Russians. Vadim Mikerin and Boris Rubizhevsky were two of the men that represented the company in the United States. This is the company that takes care of selling uranium, transporting it, and being the public relations for Rosatom. The company needed to get contracts with American companies to get the containers and transportation. The two men decided that it was going to take some money to grease the wheels.
Daren Condrey is another person that was arrested and sent to jail for the scheme. He owned Transport Logistics International. He was charged with making bribe payments to the two Russian men. The contracts were worth much more than what was paid. Mark Lambert, president of the company, was arrested on these charges, as well.
The FBI knows there were bigger fish on the Russian side. They spent seven years investigating the scheme. They tried to turn Mikerin, but failed. All they could do was trace the money to the overseas accounts they were sent to. They have emails and wire transfers confirming everything. They also had informants in the companies that were approached about sending bribes.
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This is what happens when billions of dollars are flowing, especially on an international level. The people who were bigger fish are Russian government officials. They would not get sold out by someone lower level. This is what occurs in many countries.
The next article will be on another government official that got a cushy job working for Centrus.
