Man finds uranium pellet by chance in Asikkala wicker basket

A man found a small pellet of enriched uranium in a wicker basket among belongings from a deceased person’s estate in Asikkala in 2024, Yle reports. Police investigation documents say the man called emergency services after finding it.

The pellet was inside a yellow radiation shield and was about 5 by 10 millimetres. It contained uranium enriched to 4.2 per cent and posed no immediate danger to people or the environment. A radiation meter was also among the items.

The man had received the belongings in 2018 after the new owner of the deceased man’s home cleared out items left behind. He was sorting through them six years later when he came across the pellet. In questioning, he said he felt lucky that the object had ended up with him by chance.

The pellet’s origin remains uncertain. Its characteristics point to the Soviet Union around the turn of the 1980s and 1990s. The manufacturer of the radiation meter told police the uranium capsule might have come from the company, which made radiation-measuring devices until 2010. The company said it destroyed the radioactive materials it held that year, but records of their use were not kept before 1983.

Police investigated the case as a possible offence involving the use of nuclear energy, but ended the inquiry because the suspected person had died. Police have not established how the pellet came into his possession.