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NEW YORK >> The leader of a Japan-based criminal organization conspired to smuggle uranium and plutonium from Myanmar in the belief that Iran would use it to make nuclear weapons, U.S. prosecutors alleged Wednesday.
Federal officials say Takeshi Ebisawa, 60, and his associates were transported from Myanmar to Thailand by undercover Drug Enforcement Administration agents posing as drug and arms traffickers who were in contact with Iranian generals. He showed me a sample of nuclear material. Nuclear material was seized, and samples were later determined to contain uranium and weapons-grade plutonium.
“As alleged, the defendants in this case trafficked drugs, weapons, and nuclear materials, and provided uranium and weapons-grade plutonium to Iran with the full expectation that it would be used in a nuclear weapon,” DEA Administrator Ann Milgram said in a statement. mentioned in. statement. “This is an extraordinary example of the depravity of drug traffickers who operate with complete disregard for human life.”
Prosecutors said the nuclear material came from an unidentified leader of an “ethnic rebel group” mining uranium in Myanmar. According to court documents, Mr. Ebisawa offered to sell uranium through him to the general’s leadership to finance the purchase of weapons from the general.
Prosecutors say rebel leaders provided samples that U.S. federal laboratories found to contain uranium, thorium and plutonium, and the “isotopic composition of plutonium.” is weapons-grade, meaning that sufficient quantities are suitable for use in weapons. nuclear weapons.
Ebisawa, who prosecutors allege is the leader of an international criminal organization based in Japan, was one of four people arrested during a Drug Enforcement Administration sting in Manhattan in April 2022. He is currently in jail awaiting trial and is one of two defendants named in the superseding indictment. Ebisawa is charged with international trafficking in nuclear materials, criminal conspiracy, and several other charges.
An email seeking comment was sent to Ebisawa’s attorney, Evan Lauren Lipton.
U.S. Attorney Damien Williams said Ebisawa “brazenly” trafficked materials from Myanmar to other countries.
“He allegedly did so believing the material would be used to develop a nuclear weapons program, and the weapons-grade plutonium he trafficked could have been used for that purpose had it been produced in sufficient quantities. “There’s a gender,” Williams said. In a news release. “While Ebisawa allegedly tried to sell nuclear materials, he also negotiated the purchase of deadly weapons, including surface-to-air missiles.”
The defendants are scheduled to be arraigned Thursday in federal court in Manhattan.
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