On Wednesday, the U.S. Justice Department announced that they have charged the reputed boss of a Japanese crime family with conspiring to traffic nuclear materials to Iran.
Federal prosecutors allege that Takeshi Ebisawa and an accomplice offered an undercover DEA agent, posing as someone with ties to an Iranian general, uranium and weapons-grade plutonium during negotiations for military armaments.
According to a U.S. government lab report, the plutonium in question, “would be suitable for use in a nuclear weapon.”
The fissile elements were reported to have been obtained by Ebisawa from an “ethnic insurgent group” in Myanmar, that officials say the 60-year-old was working for as a arms supplier.
DEA Administrator Anne Milgram released a statement on the situation saying, “the defendants in this case trafficked in drugs, weapons, and nuclear material, going so far as to offer uranium and weapons-grade plutonium fully expecting that Iran would use it for nuclear weapons.”
The charges come as Ebisawa is awaiting trial in New York for a 2022 narcotics and weapons trafficking indictment.
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