Russia Gangs Could Steal A-Arms, FBI Chief Says

WASHINGTON — Russian organized crime groups are spreading in the United States and Europe and “may already have the capability to steal nuclear weapons, nuclear weapons components or weapons-grade nuclear materials,” FBI Director Louis J. Freeh said Wednesday.

But Freeh emphasized in his remarks to the permanent investigations panel of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee that so far there have been “no serious diversions of weapons-grade nuclear materials.”

Freeh announced that because organized crime has become so great a concern in the former Soviet Union, he will travel to Eastern Europe and Russia next month to get a better picture of the problem.

Freeh also announced that on the trip he would open the FBI’s first permanent office in Moscow. The FBI currently has agents known as legal attaches stationed in a number of world capitals but has never had any permanently stationed in Russia or the former Soviet Union.