Japanese gangster pleads guilty to trafficking nuclear material

The U.S. Department of Justice last week said a Japanese organized crime leader, 60-year-old Takeshi Ebisawa, pleaded guilty to several charges including international trafficking of nuclear materials. The DOJ last year charged Ebisawa, who was a leader in the Japanese yakuza, or mafia, with conspiring with a network of individuals to traffick the materials, weapons, and drugs.

So he didn’t actually give the material to anyone? With the assistance of Thai authorities, U.S. law enforcement officials took the nuclear materials into their custody after discovering Ebisawa’s plans to sell the materials, the DOJ said. Laboratory analysis later determined that the nuclear materials he was planning to sell could have been suitable for use in a nuclear weapon.

Dig deeper: Read my report in The Sift about the charges against Ebisawa.