Nuclear materials for Iran, stolen U.S. weapons from Afghanistan, and enough meth and heroin to flood New York City.

These aren’t plot points from a Hollywood thriller but the real-world ambitions of Japanese crime boss Takeshi Ebisawa.

Join the JBN+ WhatsApp Group

When DEA agents first infiltrated Ebisawa’s network in 2019, they thought they were onto a standard drug trafficking case. Instead, they uncovered a scheme that kept getting bigger and scarier. Their undercover operative, posing as a weapons and drug trafficker, watched as Ebisawa opened door after door into his global criminal underworld spanning from Tokyo to the jungles of Burma.

By early 2020, he was sending photos of suspicious materials to his new “partner”. The images showed chunks of radioactive substances next to measuring counters. Lab reports followed, documenting the presence of thorium and uranium. On a video call in 2022, Ebisawa claimed he was holding more than 2,000 kilograms of Thorium-232 and 5x more uranium “yellowcake” in a hidden facility in Burma.

But Ebisawa wasn’t looking to sell to just anyone. He wanted Iran.

At the Japanese mobster’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.

Proof of the goods came in a Thai hotel room, where Ebisawa’s associates unveiled two containers of yellow powder. After a DEA tip of the meeting, Thai authorities seized the samples, which U.S. nuclear forensics experts later confirmed contained weapons-grade plutonium.

Ebisawa also offered to supply Burmese militant groups with U.S.-made surface-to-air missiles and other heavy weapons, allegedly salvaged from abandoned bases in Afghanistan. As for payment, he wanted a thousand kilograms of heroin to be sold on New York’s streets. He even tried laundering $100,000 in drug money from Manhattan back to Tokyo.

Six federal counts later, Ebisawa faces a minimum of 10 years in prison on the drug charges alone. Add in nuclear trafficking, weapons conspiracy, and money laundering, and he might never see freedom again.

He pleaded not guilty to all of the charges last Wednesday, ending what DEA Administrator Anne Milgram described as one of the most dangerous criminal enterprises they’ve ever dismantled.

“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,” she said. “DEA remains positioned to relentlessly pursue anyone who threatens our national security, regardless of where they operate.”

Comments (0)