Japanese Yakuza Leader Pleads Guilty in Manhattan to Trafficking Weapons-Grade Plutonium to Iran in DEA Sting

Jan 9, 2025, 12:40 PM

Takeshi Ebisawa, a 60-year-old Japanese national and alleged leader of the Yakuza crime syndicate, has pleaded guilty in a Manhattan federal court to conspiring to traffic nuclear materials from Myanmar to Iran. Ebisawa admitted to attempting to sell uranium and weapons-grade plutonium, which he believed would be used by Iran for nuclear weapons. He was caught in a DEA sting operation, where he communicated with a DEA confidential source and an associate posing as an Iranian general. In addition to nuclear trafficking, Ebisawa also pleaded guilty to narcotics and weapons trafficking charges. The nuclear materials in question were sourced from an ethnic insurgent group in Myanmar, and Ebisawa proposed selling them to fund weapons purchases for the group. The U.S. authorities seized samples of the nuclear materials, which were confirmed to contain weapons-grade plutonium suitable for nuclear weapons.