Mexico: police find radioactive material from stolen truck The truck was stolen on Monday while it was taking cobalt-60 from a hospital in the northern city of Tijuana to a radioactive waste-storage centre, Mexican officials and the UN agency said earlier. The vehicle was seized when the driver stopped at a gas station in the town of Temascalapa, 35 km (22 miles) northeast of Mexico City. Mexican officials say the thieves were likely common criminals unaware of the truck's radioactive cargo. Truck hijacking is common in Mexico and the theft occurred in the State of Mexico, which is not a drug cartel stronghold. Our suspicion is that they had no idea what they had stolen. This is a area where robberies are common," Fernando Hidalgo, spokesman for the Hidalgo state prosecutor, said earlier. Mexico's national nuclear safety commission CNSNS published photographs of the cargo as it was being prepared for shipment, showing a reinforced case containing the medical device, which holds the radioactive material and which looks like part of a car axle. The box is marked with the hospital's name and "radioactive materials." Apart from peaceful medical and industrial applications, experts say, cobalt-60 can also be used in a dirty bomb in which conventional explosives disperse radiation from a radioactive source. The International Atomic Energy Agency, which has stepped up calls on member states to tighten security to prevent nuclear and radioactive materials from falling into the wrong hands, made no mention of any such risk in its statement on Wednesday. The IAEA also did not give details on how much radioactive material was in the vehicle when it was seized. Inside a teletherapy device, cobalt-60 is used to treat cancer. However, the source could be extremely dangerous to a person if removed from the shielding, or if it was damaged," the IAEA said in a statement. Cobalt-60, the most common radioactive isotope of the metal, has many applications in industry and in radiotherapy in hospitals. It is also used for industrial radiography to detect structural flaws in metal parts, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA said exposure to gamma radiation from cobalt-60 results in an increased risk of cancer.