Japanese mob boss pleads guilty in New York to conspiring to traffic nuclear materials to Iran

A man who federal prosecutors say runs a notorious Japanese organized crime syndicate pleaded guilty last week to conspiring to traffic nuclear materials to Iran and U.S. weapons abandoned in Afghanistan to Burma. 

The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) had been investigating Ebisawa since at least 2019, according to court documents and evidence presented in court. 

During the course of the probe, federal prosecutors say Ebisawa unwittingly introduced an undercover DEA agent who was posing as a narcotics and weapons trafficker to his international network of criminal associates, which spanned Japan, Thailand, Burma, Sri Lanka, and the United States, among other places, "for the purpose of arranging large-scale narcotics and weapons transactions." 

In a separate transaction, he also allegedly conspired to sell 500 kilograms of methamphetamine and 500 kilograms of heroin to the undercover agent for distribution in New York, prosecutors say. 

Ebisawa was also accused of working to launder $100,000 in purported narcotics proceeds from the U.S. to Japan.

Beginning in early 2020, court documents say Ebisawa informed the undercover agent and a DEA confidential source that he had access to a large quantity of nuclear materials that he wanted to sell. 

Later that year, Ebisawa allegedly sent the undercover agent a series of photos "depicting rocky substances with Geiger counters measuring radiation," as well as purported lab analyses indicating the presence of thorium and uranium, court documents say. At Ebisawa's urging, the undercover agent agreed to help him broker the sale of his nuclear materials to an associate who was posing as an Iranian general for use in a nuclear weapons program, according to the Justice Department. 

Prosecutors say Ebisawa then offered to supply the supposed Iranian general with "plutonium" that would be even "better" and more "powerful" than uranium for this purpose. 

With two other co-conspirators, Ebisawa allegedly proposed to the undercover agent that the Burma insurgent group leader sell uranium to the supposed Iranian general, through Ebisawa, to fund the group's weapons purchase.

On a Feb. 4, 2022, video call, one of Ebisawa's co-conspirators allegedly told the undercover DEA agent and the Burma insurgent group leader that he had available more than 2,000 kilograms of Thorium-232 and more than 100 kilograms of uranium in the compound U3O8 - a compound of uranium commonly found in the uranium concentrate powder known as "yellowcake," according to court documents. 

He allegedly claimed he could produce as much as five tons of nuclear materials in Burma. They had several meetings in Southeast Asia to discuss their ongoing transactions, prosecutors say. During one of these meetings, one of Ebisawa's co-conspirators showed the undercover agent in a Thailand hotel room two plastic containers each holding a powdery yellow substance which he described as nuclear samples of "yellowcake." 

He allegedly said one container held a sample of uranium in the compound U3O8, and the other container held Thorium-232.

The samples were seized with the assistance of Thai authorities and subsequently transferred to the custody of U.S. law enforcement. 

The DOJ said a nuclear forensic laboratory in the U.S. examined the samples and determined that both samples contained detectable quantities of uranium, thorium, and plutonium. "In particular, the laboratory determined that the isotope composition of the plutonium found in the nuclear samples is weapons-grade, meaning that the plutonium, if produced in sufficient quantities, would be suitable for use in a nuclear weapon," prosecutors added. 

Ebisawa had been jailed in Brooklyn since his April 2022 arrest during a DEA sting operation that resulted in international drug and weapons charges. A superseding indictment was brought against him last February. 

On Wednesday, Ebisawa pleaded guilty to six counts. The two counts of narcotics importation conspiracy carry a mandatory minimum of 10 years in prison and a maximum of life in prison. The other charges he admitted to are conspiracy to commit international trafficking of nuclear materials, international trafficking of nuclear materials, conspiracy to possess firearms, including machine guns and destructive devices, and money laundering. 

Ebisawa's guilty 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 G. Olsen of the Justice Department's National Security Division said in a statement.

DEA Administrator Anne Milgram said the investigation into Ebisawa and his associates "exposed the shocking depths of international organized crime from trafficking nuclear materials to fueling the narcotics trade and arming violent insurgents."