The US accuses the yakuza of smuggling nuclear materials

The American judiciary announced that one of the heads of the Japanese yakuza gang was accused of smuggling nuclear materials from Myanmar.

According to AFP, Takeshi Ebisawa, who is identified as the leader of the organized crime gang Yakuza, was also accused of trying to resell the substances to finance the illegal purchase of weapons for an unidentified rebel group in Myanmar.

According to what is stated in the indictment disclosed in the Manhattan court, he was previously accused of arms trafficking together with Sumhup Singasiri in April 2022, and both were remanded in custody.

Matthew Olsen, a senior official at the US Department of Justice, announced that they were charged with conspiring to sell nuclear materials for military use and lethal drugs from Burma and to buy military weapons for an armed rebel group.

Prosecutors say Takeshi Ebisawa was transporting materials containing military-grade uranium and plutonium, as well as narcotics that originated in Myanmar.

As of 2020, Ebisawa bragged to an undercover agent that he had access to large amounts of nuclear material and was looking to sell it. The defendant provided pictures of the material along with Geiger counters that measure the amount of radioactivity.

In an operation, authorities in Thailand helped American investigators uncover a yellow powdery substance that the defendants described as “yellow cake,” meaning concentrated uranium powder.

The US Department of Justice said in a statement that a US laboratory had concluded that the isotopic composition of the plutonium found in the nuclear samples was of nuclear weapons grade, meaning that the plutonium – if produced in sufficient quantities – could be used in Atomic weapons are used.

One of the defendants, along with Takeshi Ebisawa, claimed to have more than two tons of thorium-232 and more than 100 kilograms of U308, a uranium compound commonly found in yellowcake.

Abisawa also faces a minimum of 25 years in prison for attempting to acquire surface-to-air missiles and up to 20 years for international trafficking of nuclear materials. But the trial date has not been announced yet.