A 60-year-old man, who was recently arrested by the Mumbai Police for posing as a scientist of the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), was trying to sell a purported nuclear-related design to companies in Iran on the pretext of “scientific collaboration” and “research partnership”.
Sources in the probe agency overseeing the case said Akhtar Hussaini Qutbuddin Ahmed and his brother, Adil Hussaini (59) who has also been arrested, were trying to sell a purported design purported to a lithium-6 reactor, through VPNs and an encrypted network.
The men visited Tehran around March and April, and also visited the Iranian embassies in India and Dubai several times.
They also duped a Mumbai-based Iranian diplomat by posing as a senior BARC scientist. The diplomat was cheated through fake details and reactor blueprints, the sources said.
Such fraudulent activities were being carried out on the pretext of a “scientific collaboration” or “research partnership”, the sources added.
False claim of ‘fusion breakthrough’
A lithium-6-based fusion reactor breeds tritium fuel and uses molten lithium to remove heat from the fusion reaction.
The accused, the sources said, claimed before Iranian companies that they had developed a lithium-6-based fusion reactor prototype, to control plasma temperatures. They also claimed to have tested a reactor that uses lithium-7 and said it failed due to “plasma heating failure”.
Scientists linked to the probe, however, said the prototype referred to by the accused was created theoretically but there is no scientific evidence to prove its operation.
On the reactor that uses lithium-7, the scientists said lithium-7 is unsuitable for any fusion.
Both the accused used complex scientific terms like nuclear reactor physics, isotope chemistry and plasma dynamics to confuse the investigators, the sources said.
“Plasma physics and nuclear engineering experts were roped in to understand the technical details of his statements,” they said.
Akhtar, a resident of Jamshedpur’s Jharkhand, was arrested by the Mumbai Police and his brother was arrested by the Delhi Police. More than 10 maps and purported data related to nuclear weapons were also seized from Akhtar earlier, police said.
Several fake passports, Aadhaar and PAN cards, and a fake BARC ID were also recovered from him. While one of the IDs identified him as Ali Raza Hussain, the other named him Alexander Palmer.
According to the police, the brothers began receiving foreign funding in 1995. Initially, they were paid lakhs of rupees, but after 2000, they were given crores.
It is suspected that this money was paid in exchange for secret blueprints related to BARC and other nuclear plants.