Equipment and training provided by the U.S. Nuclear Security Administration helped Argentina recover stolen cesium within two days, officials say.

The cesium-137 was taken from a Baker Atlas oil-drilling operation in Patagonia in February, The Wall Street Journal reported. The thieves attempted to use it for extortion, threatening to "make this city glow" unless they were paid $500,000.

Authorities traced the cell phone call to a suburban neighborhood in Neuquen. Then radiation-detection equipment provided by the United States picked out a taxi occupied by Benjamín Eduardo Soria, who had been fired as a technician by Baker, authorities said.

Argentinian authorities say the incident was a successful test of the nuclear-response system put in place by the Nuclear Regulatory Authority with the help of the U.S. agency.

The amount of cesium stolen was not enough to do any significant damage, the NRA said. But officials said it could have been used, along with radioactive materials from other sources, to make a dirty bomb.