An alleged leader of the Japanese criminal organization Yakuza has pleaded guilty to trafficking nuclear materials from Myanmar as part of a global drug, weapons and money laundering network, according to the United States Department of Justice.
During an undercover Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) investigation in 2021, Takeshi Ebisawa attempted to sell the materials, including weapons-grade uranium and plutonium, to someone he believed to be an Iranian general who wanted them for a weapons program. nuclear weapons, the department said in a statement.
On Wednesday, the 60-year-old Japanese citizen pleaded guilty in a New York court to conspiring with a network of associates to smuggle nuclear materials out of the Southeast Asian country of Myanmar, the document said.
He also admitted charges of international narcotics and weapons trafficking.
In 2021, Ebisawa told an undercover DEA agent that an unidentified leader of an insurgent group in Myanmar, the country formerly known as Burma, could sell nuclear material through Ebisawa to the fictional Iranian general, to finance a large arms purchase, says the prosecution.
A year later, US authorities arrested Ebisawa on charges of conspiring to distribute drugs in the United States and purchase American-made surface-to-air missiles. Early last year, he was also indicted for the alleged sale to Iran.
“As he admitted in court today, Takeshi Ebisawa brazenly trafficked nuclear material, including weapons-grade plutonium, out of Burma,” said Acting U.S. Attorney Edward Y. Kim for the Southern District of New York.
“At the same time, he worked to ship huge quantities of heroin and methamphetamine to the United States in exchange for heavy weaponry, such as surface-to-air missiles, to be used in Burma and laundered what he believed to be drug money from New York. York, to Tokyo.”
THE CNN contacted Ebisawa’s lawyers for comment.
Myanmar has been embroiled in a civil war since February 2021, when the Southeast Asian country’s military overthrew the democratically elected government. The country is awash in natural resources such as rare earth metals and other materials vital to civil and military technology, including uranium. It continues to be a major producer of narcotics, which is why it continues to attract international criminals.
During his negotiations with the undercover DEA agent, Ebisawa sent images “showing rocky substances with Geiger counters measuring radiation,” according to the indictment, as well as pages of what Ebisawa said were laboratory analyzes “indicating the presence of the radioactive elements thorium and uranium ”.
The Justice Department said Ebisawa “unknowingly introduced an undercover DEA agent, posing as a drug and arms trafficker, into Ebisawa’s international network of criminal associates, which spans Japan, Thailand, Myanmar, Sri Lanka and the United States , among other places, for the purpose of organizing large-scale narcotics and weapons transactions.”
International trafficking of nuclear materials carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison, according to the department, which referred to Ebisawa as the leader of the Yakuza, the infamous network of Japanese crime families.
“This case demonstrates the DEA’s unparalleled ability to dismantle the world’s largest criminal networks,” said DEA Administrator Anne Milgram.
“Today’s petition should serve as a strong 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 Department of Justice will hold them accountable to the fullest extent of the law ,” said Deputy Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the Justice Department’s National Security Division.
This content was originally published in Japanese mafia leader pleads guilty to trafficking in nuclear materials on the CNN Brasil website.
Source: CNN Brasil
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