Japanese Crime Boss Charged in US with Trafficking Nuclear Materials

Ebisawa Takeshi, a man who US federal prosecutors identify as a leader of a Japanese crime syndicate, has been charged with trafficking nuclear material from Myanmar. The indictment, filed on February 21 at a US district court in Manhattan, claims that Ebisawa and associates attempted to sell weapons-grade nuclear material to undercover Drug Enforcement Agency officers, expecting that Iran would use it for nuclear weapons.

Ebisawa handles a rocket launcher during a meeting with an undercover DEA agent in Copenhagen, Denmark, in February 2021. (Courtesy US Justice Department)

According to the indictment, Ebisawa met in Thailand with an agent posing as a weapons and narcotics trafficker and expressed that he wanted to purchase military-grade weapons, including surface-to-air missiles, on behalf of an ethnic insurgent group in Myanmar. He showed samples of nuclear materials to the agent. These were subsequently seized, and following analysis at a nuclear forensic laboratory they were found to contain uranium and weapons-grade plutonium.

A photograph of nuclear material Ebisawa sent to agents. (Courtesy US Justice Department)

US Attorney Damian Williams stressed that it was impossible to overstate the seriousness of the actions alleged in the indictment, saying Ebisawa “brazenly trafficked” nuclear material and that he “will now face justice in an American court.”

Ebisawa was previously charged in April 2022 with international narcotics trafficking and firearms offenses and is being held in a federal jail along with several codefendants. He faces a maximum of life in prison if convicted.

(Originally published in English.)