Numerous sources believe that in 1968 Israel managed to obtain 200 tonnes of yellowcake from the Belgian mining company Union Minière, which shipped processed uranium mined in Shinkolobwe,[2] in the present-day Haut-Katanga Province of Democratic Republic of the Congo, out of Antwerp to Genoa for a European front company by transferring the ore to another vessel at sea.
With the assistance of a friendly official at a German petrochemical company, $3.7 million was paid to Union Minière for 200 tonnes of yellowcake uranium.
After loading the Israeli freighter set sail toward Haifa, and eventually the Tunnel, a six-level automated chemical plant for processing fuel rods into plutonium at Dimona.
Several pages were missing from the ship's log and no explanation was offered; the Italian paint company assumed the cargo had been lost to hijack or piracy.
[4] In 1977 the Plumbat Affair was leaked by Paul Leventhal, a former U.S. Senate attorney, at a disarmament conference, he said the stolen yellowcake shipment was enough to run a reactor such as Dimona for up to ten years.