In early 2006, a mysterious cosmetics trader named Rakhman began showing up at salons in St. Petersburg, Russia, hawking a popular anti-aging drug at suspiciously low prices. Rakhman’s “Botox” was found to be a potent clone of the real thing, but investigators soon turned to a far bigger worry: the prospect of an illegal factory in Chechnya churning out raw botulinum toxin, the key ingredient in the beauty drug and one of world’s deadliest poisons. A speck of toxin smaller than a grain of sand can kill a 150- pound adult.
No Chechen factory has yet been found, but a search for the maker of the highly lethal toxin in Rakhman’s vials continues across a widening swath of Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Asia. U.S. officials and security experts say they know the lab exists, along with likely dozens of others.
