A man who federal prosecutors say runs a notorious Japanese organized crime syndicate pleaded guilty last week to conspiring to smuggle nuclear materials to Iran and U.S. weapons abandoned in Afghanistan to Burma.
Takeshi Ebisawa, the 60-year-old alleged leader of the Japanese yakuza, pleaded guilty Wednesday in Manhattan federal court to conspiring with a network of associates to traffic nuclear materials, including weapons-grade uranium and plutonium, from Burma to others. countries. He also pleaded guilty to charges of international narcotics and weapons trafficking, the Justice Department announced.
Acting U.S. Attorney Edward Y. Kim for the Southern District of New York said Ebisawa admitted that he “brazenly trafficked nuclear materials, including weapons-grade plutonium, out of Burma,” while at the same time working to “send massive quantities of heroin and methamphetamine to the United States in exchange for heavy weaponry, such as surface-to-air missiles, to be used on the battlefields of Burma and laundered what he believed was drug money from New York to Tokyo.”
Takeshi Ebisawa has pleaded guilty to an international legal operation. (Southern District of New York)
The Drug Administration Administration (DEA) had been investigating Ebisawa since at least 2019, according to court documents and evidence presented in court.
During the course of the investigation, federal prosecutors say Ebisawa unknowingly introduced an undercover DEA agent posing as a narcotics and weapons trafficker to his international network of criminal associates, which spanned Japan, Thailand, Burma , Sri Lanka and the United States. among other places, “for the purpose of organizing large-scale narcotics and weapons transactions.”
JAPANESE CRIME BOSS CHARGED BY US PROSECUTORS WITH CONSPIRACY TO TRAFFICK NUCLEAR MATERIAL TO IRAN
The superseding indictment alleges that Ebisawa and his network, including his co-defendants, negotiated multiple narcotics and weapons transactions with that undercover agent.
Ebisawa conspired to mediate the purchase of U.S.-made surface-to-air missiles, as well as other heavy weapons, intended for “multiple ethnic armed groups in Burma,” including the unnamed leader of “an ethnic insurgent group,” according to reports. federal prosecutors. He also allegedly negotiated a deal to accept large quantities of heroin and methamphetamine for distribution as partial payment for the weapons.
“Ebisawa understood that the weapons had been manufactured in the United States and taken from US military bases in Afghanistan,” the Justice Department said. “Ebisawa planned to distribute heroin and methamphetamine in the New York market.”
In a separate transaction, he also allegedly conspired to sell 500 kilograms of methamphetamine and 500 kilograms of heroin to the undercover agent for distribution in New York, prosecutors say.
Ebisawa was also accused of working to launder $100,000 in alleged narcotics proceeds from the United States to Japan.
In early 2020, court documents say Ebisawa informed the undercover agent and a confidential DEA source that he had access to a large amount of nuclear materials that he wanted to sell.
Later that year, Ebisawa allegedly sent the undercover agent a series of photographs “showing rocky substances with Geiger counters measuring radiation,” as well as purported laboratory analyzes indicating the presence of thorium and uranium, according to court documents. At Ebisawa’s urging, the undercover agent agreed to help him negotiate the sale of his nuclear materials to an associate posing as an Iranian basic for use in a nuclear weapons program, according to the Justice Department.
Prosecutors say Ebisawa then offered to supply the alleged Iranian base with “plutonium” that would be even “better” and more “powerful” than uranium for this purpose.
With two other co-conspirators, Ebisawa allegedly proposed to the undercover agent that the leader of the Burmese insurgent group sell uranium to the alleged Iranian base, through Ebisawa, to finance the group’s arms purchase.
In a video call on February 4, 2022, one of Ebisawa’s co-conspirators allegedly told the undercover DEA agent and the leader of the Burmese insurgent group that he had more than 2,000 kilograms of thorium-232 available and more than 100 kilograms of uranium in the compound U3O8: a uranium compound commonly found in concentrated uranium powder known as “cake.” yellow,” according to court documents.
With the help of Thai authorities, nuclear samples described as “yellowcake” were seized. (Southern District of New York)
IRAN’S NUCLEAR PROGRAM IS APPROACHING ‘THE POINT OF NO RETURN’, SAYS FRANCE’S MACRON
He allegedly claimed that he could produce up to five tons of nuclear materials in Burma. They had several meetings in Southeast Asia to discuss their ongoing transactions, prosecutors say.
During one of these meetings, one of Ebisawa’s co-conspirators showed the undercover agent in a Thai lodge room two plastic containers, each containing a yellow powdery substance that he described as nuclear samples. of “yellow cake”.
He allegedly said that one container contained a sample of uranium in the compound U3O8, and the other container contained Thorium-232.
The samples were seized with the help of Thai authorities and subsequently transferred to the custody of US authorities.
The Justice Department said a U.S. nuclear forensics laboratory examined the samples and determined that both contained detectable amounts of uranium, thorium and plutonium. “Explicitly, the laboratory determined that the isotopic composition of the plutonium found in the nuclear samples is weapons-grade, meaning that the plutonium, if produced in sufficient quantities, would be suitable for use in a nuclear weapon,” the researchers added. prosecutors.
The superseding indictment included photographs of the seized nuclear samples. (Southern District of New York)
Ebisawa had been imprisoned in Brooklyn since his arrest in April 2022 during a DEA sting operation that resulted in international drug and weapons charges. A substitute accusation was filed against him last February.
On Wednesday, Ebisawa pleaded guilty to six charges. The two counts of conspiracy to import narcotics carry a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years in prison and a maximum of life in prison. The other charges he admitted are conspiracy to commit international trafficking in nuclear materials, international trafficking in nuclear materials, conspiracy to possess firearms, including machine guns and destructive devices, and money laundering.
Ebisawa’s guilty plea “should serve as a stark reminder to those who endanger our national security by trafficking weapons-grade plutonium and other dangerous materials on behalf of organized criminal syndicates that the Department of Justice will hold them accountable to the fullest extent possible.” weight of the law. “Basic Deputy Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the Department of Justice’s National Security Division said in a statement.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
DEA Administrator Anne Milgram said the investigation into Ebisawa and his associates “exposed the shocking depths of international organized crime, from trafficking nuclear materials to fueling narcotics trafficking and arming violent insurgents.”
