Takeshi Ebisawa, 60, of Japan, has pleaded guilty in Manhattan, New York, to conspiring with a network of associates to traffic nuclear materials, including uranium and weapons-grade plutonium, from Burma to other countries, as well as to international narcotics trafficking and weapons charges.
“Today’s 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 organised criminal syndicates that the Department of Justice will hold you accountable to the fullest extent of the law,” said Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the Justice Department’s National Security Division.
“This case demonstrates DEA’s unparalleled ability to dismantle the world’s most dangerous criminal networks,” said Administrator Anne Milgram of the Drug Enforcement Administration. “Our investigation into Takeshi 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.”
“As he admitted in federal court today, Takeshi Ebisawa brazenly trafficked nuclear material, including weapons-grade plutonium, out of Burma,” said Acting U.S. Attorney Edward Y. Kim for the Southern District of New York. “At the same time, he worked to send massive quantities of heroin and methamphetamine to the United States in exchange for heavy-duty weaponry such as surface-to-air missiles to be used on battlefields in Burma and laundered what he believed to be drug money from New York to Tokyo.”
According to the court documents and evidence presented in court, since at least in or about 2019, the DEA investigated Ebisawa in connection with large-scale narcotics and weapons trafficking.
During the investigation, Ebisawa unwittingly introduced an undercover DEA agent (UC-1), posing as a narcotics and weapons trafficker, to Ebisawa’s 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.
Ebisawa and his network, including his co-defendants, negotiated multiple narcotics and weapons transactions with UC-1.
Ebisawa conspired to broker the purchase, from UC-1, of U.S.-made surface-to-air missiles, as well as other heavy-duty weaponry, intended for multiple ethnic armed groups in Burma (including the leader of an ethnic insurgent group in Burma (CC-1)), and to accept large quantities of heroin and methamphetamine for distribution as partial payment for the weapons.
Ebisawa understood the weapons to have been manufactured in the U.S. and taken from U.S. military bases in Afghanistan. Ebisawa planned for the heroin and methamphetamine to be distributed in the New York market.
In addition, Ebisawa conspired to sell, in a separate transaction, 500 kilograms of methamphetamine and 500 kilograms of heroin to UC-1 for distribution in New York.
In furtherance of that transaction, on or about June 16, 2021, and on or about September 27, 2021, one of Ebisawa’s co-defendants provided samples of approximately one kilogram of methamphetamine and approximately 1.4 kilograms of heroin. Ebisawa also worked to launder $100,000 in purported narcotics proceeds from the U.S. to Japan.
Finally, beginning in early 2020, Ebisawa informed UC-1 and a DEA confidential source (CS-1) that Ebisawa had access to a large quantity of nuclear materials that he wanted to sell. Later that year, Ebisawa sent UC-1 a series of photographs depicting rocky substances with Geiger counters measuring radiation, as well as pages of what Ebisawa represented to be lab analyses indicating the presence of thorium and uranium in the depicted substances.
In response to Ebisawa’s repeated inquiries, UC-1 agreed, as part of the DEA’s investigation, to help Ebisawa broker the sale of his nuclear materials to UC-1’s associate, who was posing as an Iranian general (the General) for use in a nuclear weapons program.
Ebisawa then offered to supply the General with “plutonium” that would be even “better” and more “powerful” than uranium for this purpose. Ebisawa further proposed, together with two other co-conspirators (CC-2 and CC-3), to UC-1 that CC-1 sell uranium to the General through Ebisawa to fund CC-1’s weapons purchase.
Thereafter, on a Feb. 4, 2022, videoconference, CC-2 told UC-1 that CC-1 had available more than 2,000 kilograms of Thorium-232 and more than 100 kilograms of uranium in the compound U3O8 — referring to a compound of uranium commonly found in the uranium concentrate powder known as “yellowcake” — and that CC-1 could produce as much as five tons of nuclear materials in Burma. CC-2 also advised that CC-1 had provided samples of the uranium and thorium, which CC-2 was prepared to show to UC-1’s purported buyers. CC-2 noted that the samples should be packed “to contain . . . the radiation.”
Approximately one week later, Ebisawa, CC-2, and CC-3 participated in a series of meetings with UC-1 and CS-1 in Southeast Asia to discuss their ongoing weapons, narcotics, and nuclear materials transactions.
During one of these meetings, CC-2 asked UC-1 to meet in CC-2’s hotel room. Inside the room, CC-2 showed UC-1 two plastic containers each holding a powdery yellow substance (nuclear samples), which CC-2 described as “yellowcake.” CC-2 advised that one container held a sample of uranium in the compound U3O8, and the other container held Thorium-232.
With the assistance of Thai authorities, the nuclear samples were seized and subsequently transferred to the custody of U.S. law enforcement. A nuclear forensic laboratory in the United States examined the nuclear 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.
Ebisawa pleaded guilty to six counts contained in the superseding indictment. A table containing the charges and minimum and maximum penalties is set forth below.