Japanese organized crime leader pleads guilty to nuclear trafficking

A high-ranking member of a Japanese Yakuza organized crime syndicate pleaded guilty in federal court to crimes including nuclear smuggling, the U.S. attorney’s office said Wednesday.

According to the press release, Takeshi Ebisawa admitted to “brazenly” trafficking nuclear material, including an unspecified quantity of weapons-grade plutonium. Justice unsealed an indictment against Ebisawa nearly a year ago in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

Ebisawa pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit international trafficking of nuclear materials, international trafficking of nuclear materials, narcotics importation conspiracy, conspiracy to possess firearms including machineguns and destructive devices, and money laundering. He could receive a life sentence.

Since around 2019, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) investigated Ebisawa undercover, Justice said. 

During that years-long investigation, Ebisawa unknowingly introduced an undercover DEA agent “posing as a narcotics and weapons trafficker” to an “international network of criminal associates” from Japan, Thailand, Burma, Sri Lanka and the U.S., the press release said while citing the complaint, indictment, and public record.

Ebisawa and his network would arrange large-scale transactions of narcotics and weapons, the release said. He also had access to “a large quantity of nuclear materials that he wanted to sell, the release said, including more than 100 kilograms of uranium. He also “conspired to broker the purchase” of U.S.-made missiles from the undercover DEA agent “intended for multiple ethnic armed groups in Burma,” the release said.

“Today’s plea should serve as a stark reminder to those who imperil our national security by trafficking weapons-grade plutonium and other dangerous materials on behalf of organized criminal syndicates that the Department of Justice will hold you accountable to the fullest extent of the law,” assistant attorney general Matthew Olsen said in the release.