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Iranwire – A senior Japanese organized crime leader pleaded guilty Tuesday to attempting to traffic weapons-grade plutonium from Myanmar to Iran’s nuclear weapons program.
Takeshi Ebisawa, 60, entered his plea in Manhattan federal court on charges that also included drug trafficking.
He faces a minimum of 10 years in prison, with the possibility of life, when sentenced on April 9.
Acting U.S. Attorney Edward Y. Kim said Ebisawa admitted to “brazenly trafficking nuclear material, including weapons-grade plutonium, out of Burma” while simultaneously orchestrating a scheme to exchange heroin and methamphetamine for military weapons, including surface-to-air missiles.
The Yakuza leader was caught in a multi-year Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) sting operation, during which he communicated with an undercover source and someone posing as an Iranian general.
Court documents reveal that in 2020, Ebisawa claimed to have access to significant quantities of nuclear materials, sending photographs of rocky substances with radiation readings from Geiger counters.
Prosecutors said the nuclear material originated from an unnamed leader of a Myanmar ethnic insurgent group who had been mining uranium.
U.S. federal laboratory analysis confirmed the samples contained weapons-grade plutonium suitable for use in nuclear weapons, along with uranium and thorium.
“This investigation exposed the shocking depths of international organized crime, from trafficking nuclear materials to fueling the narcotics trade and arming violent insurgents,” said DEA Administrator Anne Milgram.
