[/floatr]Kyodo via Japan Today: Pair held for selling radioactive cell phone straps
Police arrested a man and woman Thursday for allegedly selling fluorescent cell phone lanyards that contain the radioactive substance tritium without obtaining permission from the minister of science and technology. Such cell phone lanyards contain an amount of tritium about 26 times that of the allowable level per unit. Ichiro Shimozaki, 40, and Kyoko Fujii, 45, both from Hiroshima, are suspected of violating the 1957 radiation sickness prevention law that regulates the use, sale, lease or disposal of radioactive isotopes, police said. Investigations show that the pair allegedly imported tritium from Britain and sold tritium-processed fluorescent cell phone lanyards through the Internet to two men in Tokyo and Chiba Prefecture in February for 5,000 yen to 6,500 yen per unit. Police believe the two sold those phone straps to about 2,600 people across the country through the Internet during three and a half years through March, posting some 17 million yen in total sales, the police said.
Their selling point apparently was that the straps would keep glowing a lot longer than others on the market.
