Japanese Yakuza mob boss pleads guilty to nuclear smuggling scheme

The man they say runs a notorious organized crime group in Japan pleaded guilty last week to conspiring to smuggle nuclear weapons to Iran and US weapons left in Afghanistan to Burma.

Takeshi Ebisawa, 60, the alleged leader of Japan’s Yakuza, pleaded guilty in federal court in Manhattan on Wednesday to conspiring with a network of accomplices to smuggle nuclear material, including weapons-grade uranium and plutonium, from Burma to other countries. He also pleaded guilty to international drug and arms trafficking charges, the Justice Department announced.

Acting US Attorney Edward Y. Kim for the Southern District of New York said Ebisawa admitted that he “smuggled nuclear materials, including weapons-grade plutonium, out of Burma,” while at the same time, he worked to “export a large number of nuclear weapons. -heroin and methamphetamine to the United States in exchange for heavy weapons such as surface-to-air missiles for use on the battlefields of Burma and he believed that drug money was going from New York to Tokyo.”

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 unwittingly introduced a DEA agent posing as a drug and weapons trafficker to his international network of criminal associates, which included Japan, Thailand, Burma, Sri Lanka and the United States, among other places, “for the purpose of organizing -narcotics and big weapons.”

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The superseding indictment alleges that Ebisawa and his network, including his co-defendants, negotiated numerous drug and arms deals with the undercover agent.

Ebisawa conspired to sell the purchase of US-made ballistic missiles, as well as other heavy weapons, aimed at “several armed groups in Burma,” including an unidentified leader of a “rebel group,” according to the report. to federal prosecutors. He is said to have also negotiated an agreement to accept large amounts of heroin and methamphetamine for distribution as part payment for the weapons.

“Ebisawa understood that the weapons were manufactured in the US and taken from US military bases in Afghanistan,” the DOJ said. “Ebisawa arranged for heroin and methamphetamine to be distributed in the New York market.”

In another, he allegedly conspired to sell 500 kilograms of methamphetamine and 500 kilograms of heroin for distribution in New York, prosecutors said.

Ebisawa was also accused of working to launder $100,000 in drug proceeds from the US to Japan.

In early 2020, court documents say Ebisawa informed an undercover agent and a confidential DEA source that he had access to a large amount of nuclear material he wanted to sell.

Later that year, Ebisawa allegedly sent an undercover agent a series of photos “showing rocky objects with Geiger counters measuring radiation,” as well as lab analyzes showing the presence of thorium and uranium, court documents said. At Ebisawa’s urging, the undercover agent agreed to help him sell a colleague posing as an Iranian general for use in the nuclear weapons program, according to the Justice Department.

Prosecutors say Ebisawa then promised to supply an Iranian general with “plutonium” that would be “better” and “more powerful” than uranium for this purpose.

Along with two other accomplices, Ebisawa allegedly proposed to an undercover agent that the leader of a Burmese rebel group sell uranium to an Iranian general, through Ebisawa, to finance the group’s arms purchases.

On February 4, 2022, in a video call, one of Ebisawa’s associates allegedly told an undercover DEA agent and a leader of a Burmese terrorist group that he had found more than 2,000 kilograms of Thorium-232 and more than 100 kilograms of uranium at the site. compound U3O8 – a uranium compound commonly found in uranium concentrate powder known as “yellow cake,” according to court documents.

Nuclear samples described as “yellow cake” were seized with the help of Thai authorities. (Southern District of New York)

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He is said to have said that he could produce five tons of nuclear power in Burma. They held several meetings in Southeast Asia to discuss their ongoing transactions, prosecutors said.

During one of these meetings, one of Ebisawa’s associates showed an undercover agent in a Thai hotel room two plastic containers each containing a yellow powdery substance that he described as “yellow cake” nuclear samples.

It is suspected that he said that one container was carrying a sample of uranium in U3O8, while the other was carrying Thorium-232.

The samples were seized with the help of Thai authorities and subsequently transferred to the custody of US law enforcement.

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 determined that the plutonium isotope composition found in the nuclear samples is of weapons grade, which means that plutonium, if produced in sufficient quantities, would be suitable for use in a nuclear weapon,” prosecutors added.

The previous case included photographs of seized nuclear samples. (Southern District of New York)

Ebisawa has been incarcerated in Brooklyn since his April 2022 arrest during a DEA operation that led to his indictment on international drug and weapons charges. He was indicted in a superseding case last February.

On Wednesday, Ebisawa pleaded guilty to six charges. Two counts of conspiracy to import drugs carry 10 years in prison and a maximum life sentence. Other charges he pleaded guilty to are conspiracy to traffic in international nuclear material, international trafficking in nuclear material, conspiracy to possess firearms, including machine guns and weapons of mass destruction and money laundering.

Ebisawa’s case “should serve as a stark reminder to those who put our national security at risk by smuggling weapons-grade plutonium and other hazardous materials on behalf of organized crime groups that the Department of Justice will hold them fully accountable,” said Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the Department of Justice’s Security Division. Nationally, he said in a statement.

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DEA Director Anne Milgram said the investigation into Ebisawa and his associates “revealed the shocking depth of international organized crime ranging from nuclear smuggling to fueling the drug trade and arming violent insurgents.”