Prosecutors said in the indictment that Takeshi Ebisawa, 60, wanted to sell uranium and plutonium – raw materials that can be used to make nuclear bombs – on behalf of the leader of a rebel group in Myanmar, a country also known as Burma. Starting in early 2020, Ebisawa contacted the undercover US agent to sell nuclear raw materials for money, while also attempting to obtain military weapons on behalf of the rebel leader.
During the negotiations, Ebisawa at one point demanded $6.85 million in exchange for nuclear materials and sought to purchase weapons such as surface-to-air missiles, M60 machine guns and AK-47 rifles, according to prosecutors.
In 2021, Ebisawa traveled to Copenhagen and met with an undercover US official and two undercover Danish police officers who posed as accomplices of the US official, to examine alleged military weapons on display, according to US authorities. In February 2022, Ebisawa's associates, who have not been identified, met with the undercover American agent in a hotel room in Phuket, Thailand, to view samples of nuclear materials. Thai authorities later confiscated the nuclear materials and handed them over to US officials.
US officials said they later confirmed that the materials in Ebisawa's possession were radioactive and included weapons-grade plutonium.
As part of the broader deal, Ebisawa and Somphob Singasiri, a co-defendant and Thai national, also sought to sell “hundreds of kilograms of methamphetamine and heroin” to an undercover law enforcement officer, with the understanding that those drugs would be distributed. For users in New York, according to a previous criminal complaint filed against Ebisawa in January 2022.
Together, Ebisawa and Somphobe face eight criminal charges that could result in a life sentence. The two were arrested in Manhattan in April 2022.
“It is impossible to overstate the seriousness of this conduct,” Damien Williams, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in a news release.
Lawyers for Ebisawa and Somvov could not immediately be reached.
