Japanese crime boss busted for attempting to traffic nuke materials to Iran: feds

A leader of Japan’s feared Yakuza crime syndicate has been charged in New York with trying to traffic nuclear material to help Iran make bombs.

Takeshi Ebisawa, 60, was caught trying to sell uranium and weapons-grade plutonium to an undercover Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent posing as a narcotics and weapons trafficker with access to an Iranian general, federal officials said Wednesday. 

He did so “fully expecting that Iran would use it for nuclear weapons,” DEA Administrator Anne Milgram said.

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“It is chilling to imagine the consequences had these efforts succeeded,” Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen said.

The samples he had were seized and a US lab confirmed that the samples contained uranium and weapons-grade plutonium, prosecutors said.

Ebisawa allegedly began seeking a buyer in 2020 after getting his hands on a large amount of uranium. He sent  photos showing a rocky substance with a Gieger counter recording its radiation to the undercover agent, according to the indictment.

He asked if the purported Iran general would be interested in buying directly, which the undercover said he was.

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The agent then sent a message to Ebisawa saying, “How enriched is it? Above 5 percent? They don’t need it for energy, Iranian government need it for nuclear weapons.”

Ebisawa replied “I think and hope so,” prosecutors said.

In a September 2020 to the undercover agent, Ebisawa offered to sell 50 metric tons of uranium and thorium for $6.85 million, according to the indictment.

In a recorded phone call a week later, the gangster said he has access to “plutonium” and more “powerful” uranium for Iran’s military use. The agent acknowledged that “[t]his is gonna be a very quiet and secret illegal transaction” — to which Ebisawa agreed.

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“Yes, so that is why we need to talk fast about that,” he said on the call.

While trying to sell that terrifying nuclear material, Ebisawa also “negotiated for the purchase of deadly weapons, including surface-to-air missiles,” Southern District of New York US Attorney Damian Williams said.

The indictment included a weapons wishlist he sent — asking for 5,000 AK47s and the same number of military M16s, with a million rounds for each, as well as machineguns, mortars, and 50 RPGs.

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“It is impossible to overstate the seriousness of the conduct alleged,” Williams said.The nuclear material first came from an unidentified leader of an “ethnic insurgent group” in Myanmar who had been mining uranium, the indictment said.

Ebisawa asked the leader to sell uranium through him so that he could fund a weapons purchase from the general, the court documents allege.

As talks continued in May 2021, Ebisawa sent the agent a photograph of the insurgency group leader in Myanmar whom he described as “No. 1.” 

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In July 2021, the agent said the Iranian general told the defendants wanted to send a nuclear physicist or one of his engineers to inspect yellowcake powder that Ebisawa had sent him photographs of.

“Thx my friend,” Ebisawa responded in a message.

The undercover agent met with other defendants at a hotel in Phuket, Thailand where they were shown the nuclear samples.

On May 12, 2022, Thai law enforcement authorities seized the nuclear samples from a location in Bangkok.

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Ebisawa, seen in one image holding a terrifying rocket launcher, was already being held in Brooklyn. He faces eight charges, including money laundering and conspiracy to import narcotics — which carries a potential life sentence — along with the conspiracy to traffic nuclear material.

Ebisawa was described in court documents as “a leader of the Yakuza organized crime syndicate … that operates around the world.”

“Ebisawa’s criminal activities have included large-scale narcotics and weapons trafficking, and his international criminal network extends through Asia, Europe, and the United States, among other places,” the docs allege.

The samples provided by the leader were found to contain uranium, thorium, and plutonium, and the “isotope composition of the plutonium” was weapons-grade, meaning it could easily be used to create a nuclear weapon, prosecutors said. 

“This is an extraordinary example of the depravity of drug traffickers who operate with total disregard for human life,” said Milgram, the DEA administrator.

Ebisawa was also among four people arrested in April 2022 during a DEA sting operation. He has been jailed ever since awaiting trial and is among two defendants named in a superseding indictment. 

All of the defendants were arraigned Thursday and remain behind bars. 

A spokesman for the Manhattan US Attorney’s Office said they consented to detention when they were picked up in April 2022 and no new bail arguments were made Thursday.

Additional reporting by Kyle Schnitzer