Saturday, January 06, 2007

Litvinenko: A $30 Million Murder?


According to this source, an unnamed source familiar with the post-mortem examination of Alexander Litvinenko has revealed that the dose of Polonium which killed Alexander Litvinenko would have cost $30 million.

Wow, that's an expensive hit, isn't it?

Lends more credence to my theory that the Litvinenko death was not a murder, but was instead the result of a messy smuggling operation by Alexander Litvinenko himself.

UPDATE: The London Times says the dose cost $10 million, and they are still going with the theory that it was a murder. Good luck with that.

UPDATE: The Guardian says $20 million.

UPDATE: The Australian says $12 million.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Anybody want to start a pool?

Pastorius said...

I take $100 million.

Watcher said...

Even $10 million is pretty damn expensive, especially when you compare it with this cost efficient operation.

Anonymous said...

To be fair, I suppose we should stipulate whether the money was for offing Litvinenko or upgrading the nuke. Potentially much more yield on the latter investment.

Pastorius said...

RRA,
I think it was for a nuke, and yes, then that is a pretty inexpensive intvestment.

Anonymous said...

Well spotted Pastorius.

Pastorius said...

Thanks, Jonz.

Cubed © said...

Wow - yeah, with a tab like that, it definitely took a sugar daddy who was a high roller! That would mean either 1) state sponsorship or 2)some other group with a deep pocket.

Your idea that it could have been a terrorist thing is not without merit; many terrorist groups have that kind of money, and remember, L. converted to Islam sometime in the recent past. Being of the caucasion persuasion, I could see where he might have been offered the opportunity of martyrdom.

Russia could have been a state sponsor, but given the far less expensive (to say nothing of less attention-getting) ways they have used to kill people off in the past, it's likely that Putin, who is Old School, would have stuck to the tried-and-true.

Demosthenes said...

Commodity prices fluxiate widely. I wouldn't make any big deal of the different totals.