A FEARED Japanese gang boss was plotting to traffic plutonium nuclear materials and several heavy-duty weapons to be used in wars.
Takeshi Ebisawa, 60, has been found guilty of transporting the lethal materials from Myanmar as part of a global web of illegal activity.
The feared Yakuza crime leader now faces decades in prison after being charged in February 2024.
Ebisawa “brazenly trafficked nuclear material, including weapons-grade plutonium,” acting US attorney for the Southern District of New York Edward Y Kim said.
A year later, he also worked to send over massive quantities of drugs to the US, such as heroin and methamphetamine in exchange for weaponry.
In a New York court on Wednesday, the Japanese nation pled guilty to conspiring with a network of associates to traffic the nuclear materials out of Myanmar.
He also admitted to international narcotics trafficking and weapons charges.
The plan was uncovered by a daring Drug Enformacement Administration (DEA) investigation in 2021.
Ebisawa tried to sell the materials to someone he believed was an Iranian general who wanted them for a nuclear weapons program, the department said in a statement.
During the operation, Ebisawa unknowingly introduced an undercover US DEA agent to his “international network of criminal associates”.
This spanned Japan, Thailand, Myanmar, Sri Lanka and the US, court documents reveal.
From this DEA agent, the guilty conspired to buy US-made surface-to-air missiles and other heavy-duty weaponry in exchange, in part, for drugs.
It was also noted that he repeatedly attempted to sell the agent 500kg of methamphetamine and heroin for New York distribution.
Ebisawa began contact in early 2020, telling the undercover agent that he had access to a “large quantity of nuclear materials” that he wanted to sell, court papers said.
Prosecutors said that the nuclear material came from an unidentified leader of an “ethnic insurgent group” in Myanmar.
The attempted smuggler sent photos of the substance with Geiger counters measuring radiation.
These pictures were accompanied by pages of what he claimed was lab analysis proving the radioactivity of the material.
The agent went along with the deal, and Ebisawa’s plan eventually unravelled as he was arrested in an operation involving US, Indonesian, Japanese and Thai authorities.
His sentencing has been set for April 9.
Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, has been embroiled in a civil war since February 2021 when the Southeast Asian nation’s military ousted the democratically elected government.
The country boasts large amount of rare-earth materials vital for civilian and military technology, including uranium.
This has made Myanmar a hotspot for transnational crime.
