Feds Say Japanese Crime Boss Tried to Traffic Nuclear Material

A leader of a Japan-based crime syndicate conspired to traffic uranium and plutonium from Myanmar in the belief that Iran would use it to make nuclear weapons, US prosecutors alleged Wednesday. Takeshi Ebisawa, 60, and his confederates showed samples of nuclear materials that had been transported from Myanmar to Thailand to an undercover Drug Enforcement Administration agent posing as a narcotics and weapons trafficker who had access to an Iranian general, according to federal officials. The nuclear material was seized and samples were later found to contain uranium and weapons-grade plutonium, the AP reports.

"As alleged, the defendants in this case trafficked in drugs, weapons, and nuclear material—going so far as to offer uranium and weapons-grade plutonium fully expecting that Iran would use it for nuclear weapons," DEA Administrator Anne Milgram said in a statement. The nuclear material came from an unidentified leader of an "ethnic insurgent group" in Myanmar who had been mining uranium in the country, according to prosecutors. Ebisawa had proposed that the leader sell uranium through him in order to fund a weapons purchase from the general, court documents allege. Ebisawa, an alleged leader in the yakuza per CNN, was among four people arrested during a sting operation in Manhattan in 2022; they will be arraigned Thursday. (More on the case here.)