Japanese crime boss admits plotting to sell nuclear material to Iran. crime news

Takeshi Ebisawa faces a maximum sentence of life in prison after pleading guilty to six counts in a Manhattan court.

A Japanese crime boss has pleaded guilty to drug trafficking and weapons crimes, as well as conspiring to sell nuclear material from Myanmar to Iran, United States officials have said.

Yakuza member Takeshi Ebisawa, 60, entered a guilty plea to six counts in federal court in Manhattan on Wednesday, the US Justice Department said in a statement.

He will be sentenced on April 9.

According to prosecutors, Ebisawa told an undercover Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent and a DEA source in 2020 that he had extorted large quantities of thorium and uranium that he intended to sell.

Prosecutors said that in response to repeated questioning of Ebisawa, the undercover agent agreed to help Ebisawa facilitate the sale of nuclear material to an associate who was posing as an Iranian general.

According to prosecutors, Ebisawa offered to supply secret allies with plutonium that would be “better” and more “powerful” than uranium to make nuclear weapons.

The Justice Department said the powdery yellow substance that Ebisawa’s co-conspirators showed to undercover agents later showed in laboratory analysis that it contained detectable amounts of uranium, thorium and plutonium.

According to prosecutors, Ebisawa brokered the purchase of US-made surface-to-air missiles and heavy weapons to arm several ethnic armed groups in Myanmar and received large quantities of heroin and methamphetamine as part payment for the weapons. Also conspired to accept. ,

US officials said they conducted the arrest and prosecution of Ebisawa in cooperation with law enforcement partners in Indonesia, Japan and Thailand.

“Today’s plea should serve as a stark reminder to those who threaten our national security by smuggling weapons-grade plutonium and other hazardous materials on behalf of organized criminal syndicates that the Department of Justice will prosecute you to the fullest extent of the law. will be held accountable to the fullest extent,” said Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the Justice Department’s National Security Division.

Ebisawa, who was previously charged with international drug trafficking and firearms crimes in 2022, faces possible life in prison for the most serious charges.