Cops: Woman Cheated With Radioactive Cards

There's using marked deck of cards, and then there's this. Police in Germany say a woman dabbed playing cards with a radioactive substance as part of an elaborate scheme to cheat, reports the BBC. The 41-year-old restaurant owner in Berlin marked the cards with Iodine-125, allowing her or perhaps a gambler she was in cahoots with to spot them with some unspecified detector. The substance is typically used in medicine and poses a health risk to those exposed to it without protective clothing. It was unclear whether the doses involved in the case might have endangered players.

Details about the scheme were scant, but investigators uncovered it with some nifty detective work. First, a routine inspection of a garbage truck at a waste-treatment plant turned up elevated levels of radioactivity, explains the AP. Authorities traced the load back to the woman's restaurant, and a subsequent raid turned up 13 radioactive cards. It wasn't clear how much money the alleged scheme netted. (A renowned poker player had to return a small fortune because he skirted the rules.)