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A man who federal prosecutors say runs a notorious Japanese organized crime syndicate pleaded guilty last week to conspiring to ship nuclear materials to Iran and American weapons left behind in Afghanistan to Burma.
Takeshi Ebisawa, the 60-year-old alleged leader of the Japanese yakuza, pleaded guilty to Manhattan Federal Court on Wednesday in conspiring with a network of associates to transport nuclear materials, including uranium and weapons-grade plutonium, from Burma to other countries. He also pleaded guilty to international drug and arms trafficking, the Justice Department announced.
Acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Edward Kim, said Ebisawa admitted that he “brazenly exported nuclear material, including weapons-grade plutonium, from Burma” while working to “ship massive amounts of heroin and methamphetamine into US in exchange for heavy weapons such as surface-to-air missiles to be used on the battlefields of Burma and washed away what he presumably drug money from New York to Tokyo.”
Takeshi Ebisawa pleaded guilty to an 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 evidence presented in court.
During the investigation, federal prosecutors say Ebisawa unwittingly introduced an undercover DEA agent posing as a drug and arms dealer to his international network of criminal associates that spanned Japan, Thailand, Burma, Sri Lanka and the United States. including “for the purpose of organizing large-scale drug and weapons transactions.”
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The superseding indictment alleges that Ebisawa and his network, including his co-defendants, negotiated numerous drug and arms deals with this undercover agent.
Ebisawa conspired to broker the purchase of US-made surface-to-air missiles and other heavy weapons for “multiple ethnic armed groups in Burma,” including an unidentified leader of an “ethnic insurgent group.” to federal prosecutors. He also allegedly made a deal to accept large quantities of heroin and methamphetamine for distribution as part payment for the weapons.
“Ebisawa understood that the weapon was made in the United States and taken from there US military bases in Afghanistan“, the Department of Justice 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 an undercover agent for distribution in New York, prosecutors said.
Ebisawa was also accused of working to launder $100,000 in alleged drug proceeds from the United States to Japan.
Beginning in early 2020, court documents say Ebisawa told 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 “depicting rocky material using Geiger counters that measure radiation,” as well as purported lab tests indicating the presence of thorium and uranium, according to court documents. At Ebisu’s urging, an undercover agent agreed to help him broker the sale of his nuclear materials to an associate posing as an Iranian general for use in the nuclear weapons program, the Justice Department said.
Prosecutors say Ebisawa then offered to supply the alleged Iranian general with “plutonium” that would be even “better” and more “powerful” than uranium for that purpose.
Along with two other co-conspirators, Ebisawa allegedly suggested to an undercover agent that the leader of a Burmese rebel group sell uranium to a suspected Iranian general through Ebisawa to finance the group’s weapons purchases.
During a video call on February 4, 2022. one of Ebisawa’s co-conspirators allegedly told an undercover DEA agent and leader of a Burmese insurgent squad that he had more than 2,000 kilograms of thorium-232 and more than 100 kilograms of uranium. the U3O8 compound is a uranium compound commonly found in uranium concentrate powder known as “yellowcake,” according to court documents.
Nuclear weapons samples described as “yellow cake” were seized with the assistance of Thai authorities. (Southern District of New York)
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He allegedly claimed he could produce up to five tons of nuclear material in Burma. They held several meetings in Southeast Asia to discuss their ongoing transactions, prosecutors say.
During one of these meetings, one of Ebisawa’s associates showed an undercover agent in a hotel room in Thailand two plastic containers, each containing a powdery yellow substance he described as “yellowcake” nuclear samples.
He allegedly said that one container contained a sample of uranium in the U3O8 compound and another contained thorium-232.
The samples were seized with the assistance of Thai authorities and subsequently handed over to US law enforcement.
The Department of Justice said that a nuclear forensics laboratory in the United States examined the samples and determined that both samples contained detectable amounts of uranium, thorium and plutonium. “Specifically, the laboratory determined that the plutonium isotopic composition found in the nuclear samples is weapons-grade, meaning that the plutonium, if produced in sufficient quantities, would be suitable for use in nuclear weapons,” prosecutors added.
The superseding indictment included photographs of the seized nuclear samples. (Southern District of New York)
Ebisawa has been in jail in Brooklyn since his April 2022 arrest during a DEA sting operation that led to international drug and weapons charges. A new charge was brought against him last February.
Ebisawa pleaded guilty to six counts on Wednesday. The two counts of conspiracy to import drugs carry a minimum of 10 years in prison and a maximum of life in prison. The other charges he pleaded guilty to are conspiracy to commit international trafficking in nuclear material, international trafficking in nuclear material, conspiracy to possess firearms, including machine guns and explosive 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 crime syndicates that the Justice Department will prosecute to the fullest extent of the law,” the aide said in a statement. Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the Department of Justice’s National Security Division.
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DEA Administrator Anne Milgram said the investigation into Ebisawa and his associates “revealed the shocking depths of international organized crime, from trafficking in nuclear materials to fueling the drug trade and arming violent insurgencies.”
