MEXICO CITY — Six people have been arrested in connection with the theft this week of a truck carrying highly radioactive waste in an episode that caused an international scare and raised concerns about the transporting of nuclear material.
The group was arrested Thursday night and taken to a hospital in Pachuca, 60 miles north of here and not far from the small town where the truck and the material, cobalt 60, were found Wednesday after armed robbers stole them Monday.
One of the people, a 16-year-old boy, was vomiting and had signs of possible radiation sickness, while the others were taken to the hospital as a precaution before all were cleared and released in the late afternoon and turned over to the federal police.
The material, hospital waste being transported from Tijuana to a storage repository near Mexico City, is often cited as a potential ingredient in a dirty bomb, a combination of explosives and radioactive material, though Mexican and American officials said the theft appeared to be a common crime and not related to terrorism.
The authorities in Hidalgo State, where the hospital is, confirmed Friday that two of the men were suspected of carrying out the robbery and four others belonged to a gang that might be complicit in it, though it remained unclear if they wanted the truck, the cobalt or both. It was unclear how the police had connected the men to the case.
A hospital worker said in an interview that the police and military had swarmed the emergency room, barred the staff from using cellphones and carefully monitored people coming and going, while preparations were being made to bring the men to Mexico City.
The cobalt 60, which was in a sealed container in a locked box, was found several hundred feet from the truck, apparently carried off by the thieves or by curious people in the area. Exposure to the material for a few minutes would cause illness within a day or two, and exposure for a few hours could deliver a lethal dose.
Several members of a family who reported finding the container were checked and cleared by doctors Wednesday.
In Hueypoxtla, the small town where the truck was abandoned, a kindergarten suspended classes after faculty members complained that their health was threatened because the school was close to where the material was found.
The truck carrying the cobalt 60 was taken from a gas station where the driver had stopped. Mexican nuclear safety commission officials said the transport company violated procedures by not properly safeguarding the truck and its contents.
American officials said they were monitoring the case and would offer help if Mexico asked.
The Mexican episode appeared to be the most serious involving radioactive material in Latin America since 1987, when a quantity of cesium 137, also intended for medical use, went astray in Goiânia, Brazil.
Matthew L. Wald contributed reporting from Washington.
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