Modern Toxic Antipersonnel Projectiles

Modern Toxic Antipersonnel ProjectilesYvan Gaillard, PharmD, PhD,* Philippe Regenstreif, MD,Þ and Laurent Fanton, MD, PhDþ

Abstract: In the spring of 1944, Kurt von Gottberg, the SS police chiefin Minsk, was shot and injured by 2 Soviet agents. Although he was onlyslightly injured, he died 6 hours later. The bullets were hollow andcontained a crystalline white powder. They were 4-g bullets, semi-jacketed in cupronickel, containing 28 mg of aconitine. They were laterknown as akonitinnitratgeschosse. The Sipo (the Nazi security police)then ordered a trial with a 9-mm Parabellum cartridge containing Ditran,an anticholinergic drug with hallucinogenic properties causing intensemental confusion. In later years, QNB was used and given the NATOcode BZ (3-quinuclidinyl-benzylate). It was proven that Saddam Husseinhad this weapon (agent 15) manufactured and used it against the Kurds.Serbian forces used the same type of weapon in the Bosnian conflict,particularly in Srebrenica.

The authors go on to list the Cold War toxic weapons developed bythe KGB and the Warsaw pact countries for the discreet elimination ofdissidents and proindependence leaders who had taken refuge in theWest. These weapons include PSZh-13 launchers, the Troika electronicsequential pistol, and the ingenious 4-S110T captive piston systemdesigned by the engineer Stechkin. Disguised as a cigarette case, itcould fire a silent charge of potassium cyanide. This rogues gallery alsoincludes the umbrella rigged to inject a pellet of ricin (or anotherphytalbumin of similar toxicity, such as abrin or crotin) that was used toassassinate the Bulgarian writer and journalist Georgi Markov on Sep-tember 7, 1978, in London.

During the autopsy, the discovery of a bullet burst into 4 or 5 partshas to make at once suspecting the use of a toxic substance. Toxico-logical analysis has to look for first and foremost aconitine, cyanide,suxamethonium, Ditran, BZ, or one of the toxic phytalbumins. The useof such complex weapons has to make suspect a powerful organization:army, secret service, terrorism. The existence of the Russian UDARspray gun in the present day, however, shows that these weapons are stillpresent. The possibility that one might be used to spray a charge ofcyanide is still very real, especially as it would not be very difficult foran informed amateur to produce homemade toxic ammunition byadapting existing civil or military cartridges.

Key Words: toxic ammunition, hollow bullets, aconitine, cyanide,toxic projectile, spray gun, troika, 4-S110T, pyroliquid gun, udar,suxamethonium, BZ, Ditran, assassination, PSZh-13

(Am J Forensic Med Pathol 2014;35: 258Y264)

The idea of using a hollow small-arms projectile to carry anexplosive substance goes back to the second half of the 19th

century, when 12-caliber cartridges were filled with mercuryfulminate and black powder to make exploding bullets for

African big-game hunting. Two French hunters and explorers,Charles-Laurent Bombonnel and Eugene Pertuiset, put thismethod to regrettably wide use. The idea of replacing the ex-plosive charge with a toxic one occurred in the early 20th cen-tury. A German patent was taken out in 1910 on 7.92-caliberMauser cartridges containing morphine, but there is no proofthat such projectiles were ever actually produced.1 It was notuntil World War II that these weapons saw the light of day.

This study reviews modern munitions produced fromWorld War II to the present day. This account is restricted toantipersonnel weapons; that is, it does not deal with weapons ofmass elimination or dissuasive deterrence such as battlefieldgases: pulmonary agents (chlorine, chloropicrin, phosgene, di-phosgene); nerve agents (G-agents: tabun, sarin, soman, cyclosarin,GV and V-agents : EA-3148, VE, VG, VM, VR, VX), novichokagents (new nerve agents developed by the USSR in the 1970s and80s), blister agents (methyldichloroarsine, ethyldichloroarsine,phenyldichloroarsine, lewisite, sulfur mustard: H, HD, HL, HQ,HT and nitrogen mustard: HN1, HN2, HN3), or incapacitatingagents used in aerosols: Kolokol 1 (or other fentanyl derivatives)and dimethylheptylpyran (a synthetic analogue of THC). Weshould also mention that this study will not deal with missilesused by tribal peoples for hunting or warfare. These will be thesubject of a later study.

It is noteworthy that Russian weapons make up the vastproportion of the arsenal of toxic antipersonnel projectiles. Theplains of central Asia are the birthplace of shamanism, and thetraditional pharmacopoeia of several central Asian states usessnake venoms or active vegetable principles that have not yetbeen studied by Western pharmaceutical laboratories. For ex-ample, the venom of Vipera berus is used as a cream in Russia,Poland, and Estonia. LATOXAN (Laboratoire des ToxinesAnimales) breeding center has the largest number of venomoussnakes in the world. The laboratory, whose current director isthe doctor of veterinary medicine Harold de Pomyers, wasfounded in France by the biologist Yvan Doljansky, a native ofUzbekistan. The ancestral use of highly toxic natural principlesis without doubt one of the factors that led to the Russians de-veloping these very discreet and particularly deadly weapons.

WORLD WAR II

Russian AmmunitionIn the spring of 1944, a secret German report was

intercepted by the allies. It recounted the capture of 2 Sovietagents in Belarusian territory, armed with Mauser pistols andvery unusual 7.65-mm Browning cartridges (Fig. 1).2 They hadmanaged to get close enough to Kurt Von Gottberg, the SSpolice chief in Minsk, to shoot him. Although he was onlyslightly injured, Von Gottberg died 6 hours later with symptomsthat seemed more like those of poisoning than gunshot wounds.The cartridges recovered by the Nazis had German-made Gecobrand cartridge cases and were loaded with expanding bullets ofas-yet unknown morphology.1 They were sent to Gestapoheadquarters at 8 Prinz Albert Strasse in Berlin where the de-partment of chemistry of the SS Institute of CriminologyVabranch of the SIPO (Sicherheits Polizei)Vnoted that the bullets

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

258 www.amjforensicmedicine.com Am J Forensic Med Pathol & Volume 35, Number 4, December 2014

Manuscript received August 18, 2011; accepted December 14, 2011.From the *Laboratory of Analytical Toxicology LAT LUMTOX, La Voulte

sur Rhone; †Cabinet d’expertise balistique, Rambouillet; and ‡InstitutMedico-Legal, Lyon, France.

The authors report no conflicts of interest.Reprints: Yvan Gaillard, PharmD, PhD, Laboratory of Analytical Toxicology

LAT LUMTOX, 800 avenue Marie Curie, 07800 La Voulte sur Rhone,France. E-mail: [email protected].

Copyright * 2014 by Lippincott Williams & WilkinsISSN: 0195-7910/14/3504Y0258DOI: 10.1097/PAF.0b013e318288abe8

Copyright © 2014 Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. Unauthorized reproduction of this article is prohibited.

mailto:[email protected]

were hollow and contained a white crystalline substance. Thesubstance turned out to be aconitine, an alkaloid extract fromthe plant Aconitum napellus, which grows wild in humid Alpineareas, particularly in the Caucasus Mountains.

Very few Browning 7.65-mm cartridges were ever pro-duced in the USSR, but there were large quantities of Gecocartridges of the same caliber in the Baltic states, which hadbeen bought from Germany before 1939.3 These supplies,which the USSR took over during the June 1940 annexation,were widely used by various Soviet services, notably the NKVD(Narodnii Komissariat Vnoutrennikh Diel, the political secretpolice force formed in 1934). There is no antidote for aconitine,which goes some way to explaining its importance. The bullets,which became known as Giftgeschoss (poison bullets), came tothe attention of the SS leadership, who ordered a small batch ofidentical copies of the Russian bullets, renamed Akonitinnitrat-geschosse, to be tested in practice.

The Russian bullets weighed 4 g and were semijacketed incupronickel (Fig. 2) with 4 longitudinal slits along the forwardtwo thirds. The ogiveVthe curved forward part of thebulletVwas conical and made of steel. The rounded back end ofthe ogive sat in the axial cavity hollowed out of the 4-part leadcore in a funnel shape and was attached to the base of the cavity bya soldered metal wire.1 The cavity was filled with 28 mg ofaconitine nitrate, and the base of the projectile was closed by alead plug. On impact, the steel ogive would penetrate the targetand at the same time force the jacket to open and the core to ex-pand, releasing the toxic substance into the surrounding tissue.

German Ammunition

Aconitine BulletsOn the orders of SS-Reichsfuhrer Heinrich Himmler, a

batch of this ammunition was tested on 5 prisoners who hadbeen sentenced to death in Sachsenhausen concentration campon 11 September 1944.

The experiment was carried out under the direction of SS-Oberfuhrer Joachim Mrugowski.4 Its detailed report, which wasrecovered by the Allies, stated that

‘‘Three of the victims who had been shot in the leftthigh, at point-blank range, died in the following

hour and a half. They showed signs of acutepoisoning despite their rather insignificant

wounds, whereas the other 2 survived withoutany symptoms because the bullets had passed

clean through their thighs.’’

The deaths of the 3 condemned men were recorded at 121,123, and 129 minutes after they were shot.5

Ditran Bullets (JB-329)The Nazi Institute of Criminology then ordered a batch of

more powerful 9-mm Parabellum cartridges that could be usedwith the Walther P38.1 This time the bullets contained Ditran, amixture of 2 structural isomers comprising approximately 70%1-ethyl-2-pyrrolidinylmethyl-alpha-phenylcyclopentylglycolateand 30% 1-ethyl-3-piperidyl-alpha-phenylcyclopentylglycolate(also known as Ditran B) (Fig. 3).6 Ditran B is the more activeof the 2 isomers, both of which are strong anticholinergic drugswith hallucinogenic properties similar to those of scopolamine.Victims are thrown into such a state of mental confusion thatthey are incapable of reacting appropriately to the situationsthey find themselves in.

FIGURE 1. Russian 7.65 � 17SR cartridge containing aconitine.

FIGURE 2. Organization of the Russian bullet filled withaconitine: (1) steel ogive, (2) preslit tombac jacket, (3) lead coredivided in 4 parts, (4) soldered metal wire attached to the ogive,(5) cavity filledwith aconitine, (6) solderedmetal wire attached tothe plug, (7) base of the projectile closed by a lead plug.

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Cyanide BulletsCyanide bullets were actually in production earlier than

those mentioned above, but they were not discovered until afterthe war, when a team of workmen was clearing the rubble fromthe home of a former Nazi dignitary, Graf (Count) HeinrichWolf von Helldorf, in the ruins of Berlin.

Helldorf, a First World War veteran, had been a member ofthe paramilitary Freikorps in the 1920s, then the leader of theBerlin SA, and chief of the Berlin police during World War II.However, he had always kept his distance from the Hitler regi-men and its zealots, notably showing his disagreement with thetreatment of Generals Werner von Blomberg (War Minister until1938) and Werner von Fritsch (Commander-in-Chief of theArmy), who had both been opposed to Hitler’s expansionist ideasin Austria and Czechoslovakia. He had begun to conspire dis-creetly in military circles, but on June 20, 1944, having got toodeeply involved with the Valkyrie plotters (more out of oppor-tunism than idealism), he had been arrested, summarily sentenced,and, on Hitler’s special orders, hanged with piano wire from ameat hook in Plotzensee Prison.7 He had been the last to behanged, after watching the execution of the other conspirators bythe same method, on a rail holding 8 hangings at the same time.

After the war, while clearing the rubble from Helldorf’svilla, a workman unearthed a black leather case containing 2strange rifles. These weapons (Fig. 4), which had been orderedprivately by Helldorf from the firm DWM in 1939, had Moigeesights and a silencer. One of the rifles had a few cartridges,which were made up of 2 distinct parts around a hollow cavity:

& the rear section was made of tombac (an alloy of copper andzinc) and formed a plug that was covered by a jacket with 4vertical slits to increase expansion, whereas the hollow leadcore formed a cylindrical cavity

& the forward section was made up of a mushroom-shaped steelfiring pin with the head of the mushroom as the ogive

& the cavity contained a glass capsule filled with potassiumcyanide solution.1

THE COLD WARAs the war that had turned the world into a bloodbath was

coming to an end, a new conflict was beginning. The Sovietsecret services went on a killing spree, eliminating opponents ofthe regimen, some of whom had sought refuge in the West. Tothis end the KGB commissioned a whole arsenal of discreet anddeadly weapons.

The Organization of Russian ArmamentThe need to centralize their defense research and testing re-

sources became clear to the USSR in the late 1930s.1,8 That waswhen the Scientific Research Institutes (NII) and ConstructionBureaus (KG) were founded for aviation, artillery, and armored

vehicles, enabling the Soviets to plan and harmonize productionacross the whole USSR. A similar organization was planned forlight weaponry and was due to be put in place at the very momentwhen Germany invaded the USSR, so it was not actually carriedout until the spring of 1944. The People’s Commissar for Arma-ments D.F. Ustinov gave the order for the establishment ofNIISPVA in the grounds of factory N304 in Kuntsevo nearMoscow. This became the renowned TsNIITOChMAsh (CentralResearch Institute for Precision Machine Building), the result ofthe close working relationship between a research institute and adesign bureau. The institute not only developed its own projects,but it also paid close attention to developments abroad, for whichit relied on the GRU and KGB intelligence services. Since 1946,TsNIITOChMAsh has been responsible for the development ofmore than 90 new models of weapon and ammunition.

The 4-S110T: Smoking Is Very Bad for Your HealthThis silent and sophisticated weapon was the work of the

engineer, Igor Yakovlevich Stechkin (inventor of the selective-firemachine pistol that bears his name), who was commissioned bythe KGB to produce it in 1950. It fired electrically, using a simple1.5-V commercial battery. On the outside, it looked like just anyother cigarette case covered in brown leatherVa very fashionableitem at the time. The hinged cover opened to show 19 cigarettes,but in fact they were just the ends of cigarettes, glued to a flip-upplate that concealed four 6.25-mm barrels.9 A hidden button onthe side, where the thumb would normally be placed when of-fering a cigarette, could be pressed from 1 to 4 times, firing thebarrels sequentially. A safety catch prevented it from going off atthe wrong time. This weapon did not fire cartridges as such: thetoxic ammunition was loaded during its manufacture, so it couldonly be used once.

The casing was machined from a rectangular steel block,with the 4 rifled barrels in 2’s: one above, the other at the edges(Fig. 5). The 56-mm barrels had 4 right-handed grooves of con-stant twist rate. They enclosed the battery housing and wereclosed at the rear end by a threaded plug. The barrels were ma-chined conically, with the caliber diminishing from the rear to thefront, and a brass ring set just in front of the back end. The conicalbarrel allowed the bullet out but trapped the piston, which was aningenious way of suppressing any sound by locking the combus-tion gas in the barrel, enabling the weapon to be used with com-plete discretion.1 Stechkin would apply the same principle tosilent subsonic ammunition from the 1970s to the 1990s.

A 6-mg nitrocellulose charge was packed around a thincopper wire, which formed the resistance for the electric firingmechanism. The charge was covered by a cylindrical phenolic

FIGURE 3. Structure of Ditran A (left) and Ditran B (right).

FIGURE 4. Rifle equipped with a silencer ordered by Helldorf toDMW and accompanied with a small batch of cyanide bullets.

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resin piston obturator with a conical point and a concave base,followed by an 8.12-mm diameter asbestos graphite wad, thenby the aluminum captive piston.9

Each barrel was loaded with a hollow bullet comprising alead core covered by a soft steel preslit jacket. The hollow corewasfilled with a mixture of potassium cyanide and dicoumarin boundby gum arabic. The dicoumarin, with its anticoagulant properties,was supposed to increase the penetration of the cyanide into thevictim’s tissues, but in reality it is unlikely that it had any effect.

The mouth of the barrel was covered by a red lacqueredbrass strip, which was so soft and supple that the bullet could gothrough without opening it. Upon impact with the target, thecore would open up and spread out, due to the axial rotationbrought about by the rifling.

There was also a 2-barrel version of the device, with 8-mmbarrels.

The TROIKA Sequential PistolThis small pistol was very discreet, measuring just 10 cm

in length (Fig. 6). It had three 5.56-mm smoothbore barrels withsequential electric firing pins powered by a battery in the han-dle.1,9 The Troika could be loaded using a rectangular block of3 linked cartridges, once all 3 shots had been fired (Fig. 6). Thetoxic charge, again, was potassium cyanide.

The PSZh-13 Spray GunThe spray gun,1,9 also developed for the KGB in the 1950s,

was not a firearm but a mechanical gun that used powerfulsprings. It had twin barrels, permanently armed by 2 springs(Fig. 7). The firing pin, triggered by manual pressure on 2 le-vers, moved forward and released a sprung hammer, whichbroke a glass capsule of potassium cyanide and sent it shootingdown the barrel. The operator would have to aim it right into thetarget’s face at very close range. The fine droplets of poisonwould generally be inhaled or possibly penetrate through theeyes of the victim, who would have no physical injury. No signsof assault would show up in an autopsy, if indeed an autopsywere to be carried out, because there would be no signs of vi-olence to suggest that any criminal activity had taken place.

A device of this nature would obviously be very dangerousfor the operator, who could also be exposed to the poison be-cause of the need to get very close to the target.

One of these devices was discovered by chance by theBKA (BundeskriminalamtYFederal criminal police office) onthe assassin of Stepan Bandera, a Ukrainian dissident in WestGermany. KGB agent Bogdan Stashinsky had assassinated theleader of the Ukrainian independence movement, Lev Rebet, inMunich in 1957 using a PSZh-13 spray gun in a rolled-upnewspaper as he passed him on a stairway. Rebet’s death wasattributed to a heart attack. It was not until his arrest in 1959,after the death of Bandera, that the Soviet agent confessed to theearlier murder.

The Poison UmbrellaGeorgi Ivanov Markov was a Bulgarian writer and dissi-

dent, born in Sofia in 1929. He came to England in 1971 andworked as a journalist for the BBC. He became well known forhis virulent criticisms of the Bulgarian Communist Party and itscorrupt leader Todor Zhivkov. On September 7, 1978, on hisway back to work after lunch, he parked his car as usual nearWaterloo Bridge and went to catch the bus to his office. At thebus stop, he felt a sudden pain in his right calf. He turnedaround and saw a man with an umbrella, who excused himselfand got hurriedly into a taxi.

Later, he felt a sharp pain and noticed a small inflamed spoton his calf. That night he developed a high fever, along withnausea and weakness, and was admitted to St James Hospital. Theinitial diagnosis was of septicemia, as the lymphatic ganglia of thelower limbs were very swollen. After 48 hours, he developedhypotension and tachycardia, followed by cardiovascular collapse.On the third day, he began vomiting blood and developed severecardiac dysrhythmia, which led to his death later that day.

At the autopsy, a small spherical pellet was extracted fromhis calf. It was 1.65 mm in diameter, 0.29 mm3 in volume, andmade of 90% platinum and 10% iridium. It had 2 holes withdiameters of 0.35 mm drilled through it, producing an X-shapedcavity, sealed with a coating that would melt at +35-C.10 Be-cause of the minute quantity of poison injected, the observedsymptoms and their analogy with an animal modelVapigVcoroner Dr David Gall estimated that the only possibletoxin involved could be ricin. In fact, the toxin was never for-mally identified, and the suspected weapon, the umbrella, wasnever recovered or examined (Fig. 8). An injected dose ofaround 0.5 mg of ricin was estimated to be the cause of death.11

There were at least 2 other assassination attempts using thesame method, both of which failed. One was on VladimirKostov, a Bulgarian refugee in Paris, and the other on BorisKorczac, a CIA agent then living in McLean, Virginia.12

Other AmmunitionA batch of Russian-made ammunition dating from the

1970s or 1980s was found in the former Czechoslovakia. These22-caliber long rifle cartridges were mounted in Vostok cases.13

The bullets were made entirely of lead and had a cross-slitogive, dark blue enameled tip, and an internal cavity filled

FIGURE 6. Potassium cyanide preloaded ‘‘Troika’’ pistol.

FIGURE 5. The 4-S110T, out of its brown leather cigarette case.




with a dough-like mixture containing 6% succinylcholine.1

Upon impact, the pre-slit bullet would mushroom and open out,releasing the substance into the target. As with ricin, the iden-tification of curare-type poisons such as succinylcholine(suxamethonium) is a challenge for the analytical toxicologist.

Czech AmmunitionAfter the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989, several examples

of 9-mm Parabellum cartridges, developed on the orders of theCzechoslovakian intelligence services, were discovered in amunitions store in Bratislava, which has now been taken over bythe SIS (Slovakian Intelligence Service). This type of ammu-nition also existed in other calibers (7.62 � 25 mm Tokarev and9 � 18 Makarov). The paternity of this Czech ammunition wasattributed to the Prague firm Sellier & Bellot, but it could havebeen made using their components or cartridges without theSellier & Bellot factory really being involved. The cartridgecase of the 9-mm Parabellum was made of brass, with a 2-piecebrass primer. The concave-base bullet was made of nickel-platedsteel, whereas its hollow-point ogive was sealed by a dark greenplastic cap with a yellow tip (Fig. 9). Beneath it, the lead core had acylindrical cavity with a conical base, lined with a plastic coatingand containing 130 mg of white powder.14 Thirty percent of thepowder was potassium cyanide; the other components were notidentified but seemed to be binders.1 A vegetable fiber wad sep-arated the cavity from the plastic ogive. The only known examplesof these Czech cartridges are kept in the Bundeskriminalamt, theGerman federal criminal police office, and the AIVD, the intelli-gence and security service of the Netherlands.

FROM THE END OF THE COLD WARTO THE PRESENT DAY

BZ Bullets3-Quinuclidinyl benzilate, also known as QNB and coded

BZ by NATO, is a military incapacitating agent.15 Like Ditran,

it is an anticholinergic causing such intense mental confusion asto prevent any effective reaction against an enemy. These bulletswere featured in the arsenal of the Serbian forces invadingBosnia-Herzegovina, particularly in Srebrenica in the 1990s. Atthe same time, it has been established that Saddam Husseinordered the production of the chemical (called agent 15 at thetime) and used it against the Iraqi Kurds, but it is not known inwhat form agent 15 was used.16

BZ and its homologs were officially abandoned after theAmerican decision to end research into chemical weapons in 1970.

In the 1960s, the United States had developed an inca-pacitating agent with even stronger anticholinergic properties:3-quinuclidinyl phenylcyclopentylglycolate coded EA-3167had an effective dose of 0.2 mg and lasted for several days.17

FIGURE 7. PSZh-13 mechanical spray gun used for the murder of Stephan Bandera.

FIGURE 8. Imaginary representation of the umbrella used for themurder of GeorgiMarkov (1) trigger, (2) compressed gas cylinderused to propel the pellet.

FIGURE 9. Czech 9-mm Parabellum bullets containing 130 mgof 30% potassium cyanide.




Pyroliquid Spray GunThe UDAR or PHIALKA-M was developed by

TsNIITOChMAsh in the early 1990s. UDAR means ‘‘punch’’ inRussian but is also the acronym for ustroistvo dozirovannogoaerozolnogo raspylenia which means ‘‘device for dischargingaerosol.’’1 It is a type of pistol without a barrel, with a triggerand lever for loading/ejecting ammunition on the left, operatedby the thumb (Fig. 10). The black polymer weapon has amagazine for five 13 � 60-mm cartridges. The cartridge casescan be brass-plated steel, chromium-plated steel, or differentcolored plastic (brown, anthracite gray, blue, or red), dependingon the toxic charge. The cartridge is cylindrical, without any rimor groove, and with a hole at the rear for a shotgun primer. Theother end is sealed by a cap made of varnished cork or plastic.Inside the cartridge, a sliding piston is driven forward by theexpanding gases when the weapon is fired, shooting the activesubstance toward the target.

The plastic cartridge cases are for civilian use, whereas themetal cases are used by police and security forces. The aerosollasts for 15 to 30 seconds. The effective range is about 5 m, andthe user’s security distance is 0.5 m.

The toxic charges used are teargas incapacitating agentssuch as o-chlorobenzylidene malononitrile, also called chloro-benzalmalononitrile, or, more commonly, CS. Phenacyl chlo-ride, commonly called CN, is also used. There are also chargescontaining extracts of natural pepper (the active principle ofwhich is capsaicin) called pepper spray, OC spray, or oleoresincapsicum spray. Finally, there is a synthetic compound of cap-saicin: 4-nonanoyl morpholine or pelargonic acid morpholine,better known as MPK.

Other teargas agents (not available with the Russian UDARspray gun) are dibenzo(b,f )-(1-4) oxazepine or CR, diphenyl-chlorarsine (adamsite) notably associated with choracetophenone,PD, DA, DC, ED, camite (CA), cyclite (benzyl bromide), mar-tonite (BA), and ethyl bromacetate (BAE).18

It is also highly likely that potassium cyanide cartridgesVcode name OV (otravlyayusschche veshshestvo, or toxic agent)Vare available through clandestine channels.

CONCLUSIONSIf, during an autopsy, a firearm projectile is found to have

broken into 4 parts (as well as an ogive, possibly) the forensicsurgeon should immediately be alerted to the possible use of atoxic projectile. In such cases, the analytical toxicologist shouldfocus on compounds such as aconitine, cyanide, and possiblysuxamethonium. Incapacitating charges that might be used in-clude Ditran, BZ, and possibly compounds such as JB-318, JB-336, EA-3167, EA-3443, EA-3580 and EA-3834. The use ofthese weapons is cause to suspect the involvement of a powerfulorganization such as an intelligence service, a branch of thearmed forces, or a terrorist organization.

Clearly, forensic surgeons and toxicological laboratoriesare highly unlikely to come across the use of such weapons intheir everyday work. They belong to an era that could be con-sidered firmly in the past.

The existence of the UDAR spray gun in the present day,however, shows that these weapons have not gone away. Thepossibility that one might be used to spray a charge of cyanide isstill very real, especially as it would not be very difficult for aninformed amateur to produce homemade toxic ammunition byadapting civil or military CS, CN, OC, or MPK cartridges. Itwas reported in the French newspaper Liberation19 that theColombian police had seized 2 caches of 5000 bullets soaked incyanide (June 7 and August 30, 2004). The ammunition was forAK47 rifles belonging to the FARC (Revolutionary ArmedForces of Colombia). USA Today had already reported the sei-zure of 800 bullets soaked in cyanide on May 19, 2004.20 It iseasy enough for the toxicologist to determine the concentrationof cyanide in body fluids,21 although it can be more of a chal-lenge for interpretation if samples are not taken until some timeafter death. The pertinence of the concentration in a bloodsample (in cases where it is the only sample taken) is alsoquestionable if an extremely sudden death has occurred as aresult of exposure through inhalation. In fact, without lunganalysis, it is doubtful whether blood concentration would bemeaningful enough to determine the cause of death.

Finally, the use of ricin (Ricinus communis) or anotherphytoalbumin such as crotin (Croton tiglium) or abrin (Abrusprecatorius) is always possible in view of the high toxicity ofthese substances.

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20. Colombian troops seize cyanide-tipped bullets from leftist rebels.Available at: http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/world/2004-05-19-colombia-cyanide_x.htm. Accessed September 19, 2014.

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http://www.liberation.fr/monde/2004/08/30/colombie-balles-au-cyanure_490699

http://www.liberation.fr/monde/2004/08/30/colombie-balles-au-cyanure_490699

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/world/2004-05-19-colombia-cyanide_x.htm

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/world/2004-05-19-colombia-cyanide_x.htm

Modern Toxic Antipersonnel Projectiles

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