A man who federal prosecutors say runs a notorious Japanese organized crime group pleaded guilty last week to plotting to ship nuclear weapons to Iran and US weapons abandoned in Afghanistan to Burma .
Takeshi Ebisawa, the 60-year-old alleged leader of Japan's Yakuza, pleaded guilty Manhattan federal court on Wednesday to plan a conspiracy and a network of links to transport nuclear material, including uranium and weapons-grade plutonium, from Burma to other countries. He also pleaded guilty to drug trafficking and international weapons charges, the Justice Department announced.
United States Attorney Edward Y. Kim of the Southern District of New York said Ebisawa admitted that he “brazenly sold nuclear material, including weapons-grade plutonium, from Burma.” while at the same time, he worked to “send large quantities of nuclear material. heroin and methamphetamine to the United States for heavy weapons such as surface-to-surface missiles to be used on the battlefields of Burma and to launder what believed to be drug money from New York to Tokyo.”
Takeshi Ebisawa accused the international criminal operation. (Southern District of New York)
The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has been investigating Ebisawa since at least 2019, according to court documents and testimony presented in court.
During the investigation, federal prosecutors said Ebisawa exposed an undercover DEA agent posing as a drug and arms dealer to his international criminal network, which spanned Japan, Thailand, Burma, Sri Lanka and the United States. among other places, “for the purpose of organizing large-scale drug and weapons transactions.”
The indictment alleges Ebisawa and his network, including his co-defendants, negotiated numerous drug and weapons deals with the undercover agent.
Ebisawa planned to sell the purchase of US-made surface-to-air missiles, as well as other heavy weapons, aimed at “many armed groups in Burma,” including the leader of the known as the “rebellious tribe,” according to to federal prosecutors. He also allegedly negotiated a deal to receive large amounts of heroin and methamphetamine to be distributed as partial payment for weapons.
“Ebisawa understood that the weapons were made in the US and confiscated US military bases in Afghanistan,” said the DOJ. “Ebisawa intended heroin and methamphetamine to be distributed in the New York market.”
In another incident, he also said he planned to sell 500 kilograms of methamphetamine and 500 kilograms of heroin to an undercover agent for distribution in New York, prosecutors said.
Ebisawa was also accused of transferring $100,000 from the US to Japan.
As of early 2020, court documents say Ebisawa informed an undercover agent and a confidential DEA source that he had access to large amounts of nuclear material he wanted to sell.
Later that year, Ebisawa allegedly sent an undercover agent a series of photographs “showing rock objects with Geiger devices that measure radiation,” as well as laboratory tests showing the presence of thorium and uranium, the documents state. of the court say. At Ebisawa's urging, the undercover agent agreed to help him sell his nuclear assets to a person posing as an Iranian military commander for use in the nuclear weapons program, according to the Department of Defense. Justice.
Prosecutors say Ebisawa offered to supply the Iranian commander with plutonium that would be “better” and “more powerful” than uranium for the project.
With two other co-conspirators, Ebisawa allegedly proposed to an undercover agent that a Burmese rebel leader sell uranium to a suspected Iranian official, through Ebisawa, to support purchase of group weapons.
On January 4, 2022, in a video call, one of Ebisawa's co-conspirators allegedly told an undercover DEA agent and leader of a Burmese rebel group that he had more than 2,000 kilograms of Thorium. -232 and more than 100 kilograms of uranium in the country. compound U3O8 – a uranium compound commonly found in the powdered uranium concentrate known as “Yellowcake,” according to court documents.
The nuclear samples described as “yellowcake” were obtained with the help of the Thai authorities. (Southern District of New York)
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He allegedly said he could produce five tons of nuclear weapons in Burma. They held several meetings in Southeast Asia to discuss their ongoing dealings, prosecutors said.
During one of these meetings, one of Ebisawa's colleagues showed an agent hiding in a Thai hotel room two plastic containers each containing a yellow powdery substance that he described as as examples of nuclear “yellowcake.”
He allegedly said that one container held a sample of uranium in the U3O8 compound, and the other container held Thorium-232.
The samples were seized with the help of Thai authorities and later transferred to US custody.
The DOJ said that a nuclear forensic laboratory in the US tested the samples and found that both samples contained detectable amounts of uranium, thorium and plutonium. “In particular, the laboratory concluded that the isotope composition of plutonium found in nuclear samples is weapons grade, meaning that plutonium, if produced in sufficient quantities, would be suitable for use in a weapon nuclear,” prosecutors added.
The superseding indictment included photographs of the nuclear samples taken. (Southern District of New York)
Ebisawa had been jailed in Brooklyn since his April 2022 arrest during a DEA operation that resulted in international drug and weapons charges. A further charge was brought last February.
On Wednesday, Ebisawa pleaded guilty to six counts. Two counts of drug conspiracy carry a minimum of 10 years in prison and up to life in prison. Other charges he pleaded guilty to include conspiracy to sell nuclear materials to other countries, to sell nuclear materials to other countries, conspiracy to possess weapons, including tribal weapons and mass destruction devices. , and money laundering.
Ebisawa's guilty plea “should serve as a stark reminder to those who endanger our national security by selling plutonium weapons and other dangerous materials to organized crime groups that the Department of Justice will hold you accountable to the fullest extent of the law,” Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the Department of Justice's Homeland Security Division said in a statement.
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DEA Director Anne Milgram said the investigation into Ebisawa and his associates “has exposed the alarming depth of international organized crime ranging from selling nuclear weapons to drug trafficking and arming violent insurgents.” .”