Leader of Japanese crime syndicate pleads guilty to conspiring to traffic nuclear materials to Iran

According to the Associated Press, a man, allegedly a leader of a Japanese crime syndicate, pleaded guilty on Wednesday in Manhattan federal court to conspiring to smuggle uranium and plutonium from Myanmar, believing that Iran would use it to manufacture nuclear weapons. The man is identified as Takeshi Ebisawa, 60, from Japan.

Ebisawa admitted to charges of weapons and drug smuggling, which carry a minimum sentence of 10 years in prison and a maximum of life imprisonment. His sentencing hearing is scheduled for April 9th. Prosecutors stated that Ebisawa was unaware that he was dealing with undercover agents from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and their associate, who posed as an Iranian general, during 2021 and 2022. Ebisawa was arrested by the DEA in Manhattan in April 2022.

Anne Milgram, the Administrator of the DEA, stated in a release that this prosecution demonstrates the DEA’s "ability to dismantle the world’s most dangerous criminal networks.” She also noted that the investigation “exposed the shocking depths of international organized crime, from trafficking in nuclear materials to fueling drug trades and armed insurgencies.”

U.S. Acting Attorney Edward Y. Kim said that Ebisawa admitted during his plea that he "brazenly trafficked nuclear materials, including weapons-grade plutonium, from Myanmar." He added, “At the same time, he attempted to ship large quantities of heroin and methamphetamine into the United States in exchange for heavy weaponry, such as surface-to-air missiles, for use in the battlefields of Myanmar.”

Court documents reveal that in 2020, Ebisawa told an undercover DEA agent that he could obtain large quantities of nuclear materials and wanted to sell them. To prove his claim, he sent the agent photos showing rock-like substances and radiation measurements taken with a Geiger counter, claiming they contained thorium and uranium. Prosecutors stated that these nuclear materials came from an unidentified leader of a “nationalist insurgent group” in Myanmar that had been mining uranium. Ebisawa had proposed that the leader sell the uranium through him to finance the purchase of weapons from the "general."

Prosecutors said they obtained samples of the alleged nuclear material, and U.S. federal labs found that the samples contained uranium, thorium, and plutonium, and that "the isotopic composition of the plutonium" was weapons-grade, meaning there was enough suitable plutonium for nuclear weapons. The Associated Press has sent an email to Ebisawa's lawyer seeking comment.

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