Alleged Yakuza leader admits trafficking nuclear materials from Myanmar

CNN —

An alleged leader from Japan’s Yakuza crime syndicates has pleaded guilty to trafficking nuclear materials from Myanmar as part of a global web of trades in drugs, weapons and laundered cash, according to the US Department of Justice.

During an undercover investigation by the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in 2021, Takeshi Ebisawa tried to sell the materials – including uranium and weapons-grade plutonium – to someone he believed was an Iranian general who wanted them for a nuclear weapons program, the department said in a statement.

The 60-year-old Japanese national on Wednesday pleaded guilty in a New York court to conspiring with a network of associates to traffic the nuclear materials out of Myanmar, it said.

He also admitted to international narcotics trafficking and weapons charges.

In 2021, Ebisawa told an undercover DEA agent that an unnamed leader of an insurgent group in Myanmar, the country formerly known as Burma, could sell nuclear material through Ebisawa to the fictitious Iranian general, to fund a large weapons purchase, the indictment says.

A year later, US authorities arrested Ebisawa on charges of plotting to distribute drugs in the United States and purchase American-made surface-to-air missiles. Early last year he was also hit with charges over the purported Iranian sale.

“As he admitted in court today, Takeshi Ebisawa brazenly trafficked nuclear material, including weapons-grade plutonium, out of Burma,” said acting US attorney Edward Y. Kim for the Southern District of New York.

“At the same time, he worked to send massive quantities of heroin and methamphetamine to the United States in exchange for heavy-duty weaponry such as surface-to-air missiles to be used in Burma and