Japanese crime boss admits to conspiring to sell nuclear material to Iran

Takeshi Ebisawa faces a maximum punishment of beingness successful situation aft pleading blameworthy to six counts successful a Manhattan court.

A Japanese transgression brag has pleaded blameworthy to conspiring to merchantability atomic worldly from Myanmar to Iran on with cause trafficking and weapons offences, authorities successful the United States person said.

Takeshi Ebisawa, 60, a subordinate of the yakuza, entered a blameworthy plea to six counts successful national tribunal successful Manhattan connected Wednesday, the US Department of Justice said successful a statement.

He is acceptable to beryllium sentenced connected April 9.

According to prosecutors, Ebisawa successful 2020 told an undercover cause for the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and a DEA root that helium had acquitted a ample quantity of thorium and uranium that helium wished to sell.

In effect to Ebisawa’s repeated inquiries, the undercover cause agreed to assistance Ebisawa broker the merchantability of the atomic materials to an subordinate who was posing arsenic an Iranian general, prosecutors said.

Ebisawa past offered to proviso the undercover subordinate with plutonium that would beryllium adjacent “better” and much “powerful” than uranium for making atomic weapons, according to prosecutors.

A powdery yellowish substance that Ebisawa’s co-conspirators showed to undercover agents was aboriginal determined successful a laboratory investigation to incorporate detectable quantities of uranium, thorium and plutonium, the Justice Department said.

Ebisawa besides conspired to broker the acquisition of US-made surface-to-air missiles and heavy-duty weaponry to limb aggregate taste equipped groups successful Myanmar, and to judge ample quantities of heroin and methamphetamine arsenic partial outgo for the arms, according to prosecutors.

US officials said they conducted Ebisawa’s apprehension and prosecution successful practice with instrumentality enforcement partners successful Indonesia, Japan and Thailand.

“Today’s plea should service arsenic a stark reminder to those who imperil our nationalist information by trafficking weapons-grade plutonium and different unsafe materials connected behalf of organized transgression syndicates that the Department of Justice volition clasp you accountable to the fullest grade of the law,” said Assistant Attorney General Matthew G Olsen of the Justice Department’s National Security Division.

Ebisawa, who was antecedently charged successful 2022 with planetary cause trafficking and firearms offences, faces imaginable beingness imprisonment for the astir superior of the charges.

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