A photogenic Yakuza boss pleaded guilty to trying to sell nuclear material

In February last year, the leader of the Japanese Yakuza Takeshi Ebisawa was remembered by us when he posed for a photo with a rocket launcher. He will go to federal prison this year after pleading guilty to trying to sell weapons-grade plutonium, drugs and weapons to undercover federal agents.

According to the Justice Department, Ebisawa is part of a large-scale criminal network spanning Japan, Thailand, Bruma, Sri Lanka and the United States that moves drugs and weapons through Southeast Asia. Ebisawa was a known figure to the feds, who organized a special operation to capture him.

He needed surface-to-air missiles left over from America’s war in Afghanistan, which he planned to sell to armed groups in Burma. According to the feds, Ebisawa would pay for some of those weapons in part by using amphetamines and heroin that were headed for the US street market. The Yakuza leader also wanted to sell an additional 500 kilograms of methamphetamine and heroin as a separate operation.

And there is also weapons-grade nuclear material. As part of the operation, Ebisawa attempted to sell what he claimed was thorium and uranium to an undercover agent posing as an Iranian general. The Yakuza boss sent the bogus general photos of a rocky substance next to a Geiger counter, along with photos of what he claimed were lab reports. “Ebisawa then offered to supply the general with ‘plutonium’ that would be even ‘better’ and ‘more powerful’ than uranium for this purpose,” the Ministry of Justice said in a statement. press release it is said about the guilty verdict.

Ebisawa claimed that he had 2,000 kilograms of thorium-232, more than 100 kilograms of uranium in the form of a yellow paste. He promised that he could get another five tons of nuclear material from his contacts in Burma. He provided the samples, and when the feds tested them, they found that Ebisawa did indeed have weapons-grade nuclear material.

He pleaded guilty to all six counts: conspiracy to traffic in nuclear material, actual trafficking in nuclear material, money laundering and three drug and firearms charges. The judge will determine the sentence, but only the weapons charge is punishable by life in prison.

“Our investigation into Takeshi Ebisawa and his associates revealed staggering depths of international organized crime, from trafficking in nuclear materials to fueling the drug trade and arming violent insurgents,” DEA Administrator Ann Milgram said in a press release about the case. “The DEA remains committed to relentlessly pursuing anyone who threatens our national security, regardless of where they operate. Protecting the American people from such evil will always remain the DEA’s top priority.”

Prosecutions of those who traffic in nuclear materials are incredibly rare. Business is strictly controlled. Only nine countries in the world have access to nuclear weapons, and nuclear energy is tightly regulated. The International Atomic Energy Agency recorded only 4,243 cases of illegal activity with nuclear material since 1993.

In 2023, it reported 168 incidents in 31 states and said this was “in line with historical averages”. But nuclear energy is developing. Russia, China and the USA are leading a new nuclear arms race. Nuclear weapons and power are big again, and more nuclear power means more failure points, more complex supply chains, and more places for nuclear materials be lost or stolen en route.