By South China Morning Post | Created at 2025-01-09 06:44:48 | Updated at 2025-01-09 18:28:56
11 hours ago
The purported leader of a Japan-based crime syndicate pleaded guilty on Wednesday to charges alleging that he conspired to traffic uranium and plutonium from Myanmar in the belief that Iran would use it for nuclear weapons.
Takeshi Ebisawa, 60, of Japan, entered the plea in Manhattan federal court to weapons and narcotics trafficking charges that carry a mandatory minimum of 10 years in prison and the possibility of life behind bars. Sentencing was set for April 9.
Prosecutors say Ebisawa did not know he was communicating in 2021 and 2022 with a confidential source for the Drug Enforcement Administration along with the source’s associate, who posed as an Iranian general. Ebisawa was arrested in April 2022 in Manhattan during a DEA sting.
DEA Administrator Anne Milgram said in a release that the prosecution showed the DEA’s “unparalleled ability to dismantle the world’s most dangerous criminal networks”.
She said the investigation “exposed the shocking depths of international organised crime from trafficking nuclear materials to fuelling the narcotics trade and arming violent insurgents”.
Acting US Attorney Edward Y. Kim said Ebisawa admitted at his plea that he “brazenly trafficked nuclear material, including weapons-grade plutonium, out of Burma (Myanmar)”.
