The Sum of All Fears.
U.S. authorities said Wednesday they had charged a member of the Japanese yakuza criminal underworld with handling nuclear material sourced from Myanmar and seeking to sell it to fund an illicit arms deal.
According to a superseding indictment unsealed in a Manhattan court, yakuza leader Takeshi Ebisawa and co-defendant Somphop Singhasiri had previously been charged in April 2022 with drug trafficking and firearms offenses, and both were remanded.
“The defendant stands accused of conspiring to sell weapons grade nuclear material and lethal narcotics from Burma (Myanmar), and to purchase military weaponry on behalf of an armed insurgent group,” said Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen of the Justice Department’s National Security Division.
“It is chilling to imagine the consequences had these efforts succeeded and the Justice Department will hold accountable those who traffic in these materials and threaten US national security and international stability.”
The military weaponry to be part of the arms deal included surface-to-air missiles, the indictment alleges.
Prosecutors allege that Ebisawa “brazenly” moved material containing uranium and weapons-grade plutonium, alongside drugs, from Myanmar.
From 2020, Ebisawa boasted to an undercover officer he had access to large quantities of nuclear materials that he sought to sell, providing photographs of materials alongside Geiger counters registering radiation.
During a sting operation including undercover agents, Thai authorities assisted US investigators to seize two powdery yellow substances which the defendant described as “yellowcake.”
“The (US) laboratory determined that the isotope composition of the plutonium found in the Nuclear Samples is weapons-grade, meaning that the plutonium, if produced in sufficient quantities, would be suitable for use in a nuclear weapon,” the Justice Department said in its statement.
One of Ebisawa’s co-conspirators claimed they “had available more than 2,000 kilograms (4,400 pounds) of Thorium-232 and more than 100 kilograms of uranium in the compound U3O8 — referring to a compound of uranium commonly found in the uranium concentrate powder known as ‘yellowcake’.”
The indictment claims Ebisawa had suggested using the proceeds of the sale of nuclear material to fund weapons purchases on behalf of an unnamed ethnic insurgent group in Myanmar.
Ebisawa faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 25 years in prison for seeking to acquire surface-to-air missiles, and up to 20 years imprisonment for the trafficking of nuclear materials internationally.
Prosecutors describe Ebisawa as a “leader of the Yakuza organized crime syndicate, a highly organized, transnational Japanese criminal network that operates around the world (and whose) criminal activities have included large-scale narcotics and weapons trafficking.”
According to the allegations contained in the indictment, beginning in early 2020, Ebisawa informed UC-1 and a DEA confidential source (CS-1) that Ebisawa had access to a large quantity of nuclear materials that he wanted to sell. Later that year, Ebisawa sent UC-1 a series of photographs depicting rocky substances with Geiger counters measuring radiation, as well as pages of what Ebisawa represented to be lab analyses indicating the presence of thorium and uranium in the depicted substances. In response to Ebisawa’s repeated inquiries, UC-1 agreed, as part of the DEA’s investigation, to help Ebisawa broker the sale of his nuclear materials to UC-1’s associate, who was posing as an Iranian general (the General), for use in a nuclear weapons program. Ebisawa then offered to supply the General with “plutonium” that would be even “better” and more “powerful” than uranium for this purpose. An example of a photograph sent by Ebisawa is shown below:
With the assistance of Thai authorities, the Nuclear Samples were seized and subsequently transferred to the custody of U.S. law enforcement authorities. A U.S. nuclear forensic laboratory examined the Nuclear Samples and determined that both samples contain detectable quantities of uranium, thorium and plutonium. In particular, the laboratory determined that the isotope composition of the plutonium found in the Nuclear Samples is weapons-grade, meaning that the plutonium, if produced in sufficient quantities, would be suitable for use in a nuclear weapon.
Noticed how the undercover agent posed as an Iranian General for the true ring of authenticity. Now right there is the true Sum of all Fears – Iran getting a nuke. That regime needs to go, and fast.
As I commented elsewhere, it’s plausible that the seller was trying to scam the general (undercover agent), much like someone can sell you a fake key of coke by putting a layer of cocaine on top of a pack of baking soda.
Yup, the Walmart in Myanmar is having a special this week on starter packs of plutonium and air-to-air missiles. I sure hope he was scamming, but if you can get a little, why can’t you get a lot? No excuza for the Yakuza – he and his pal are going to jail for a loooong time.
A recent reminder of how deathly and destructive the relatively small atomic bombs that hit Hiroshima on 6th August 1945 (and Nagasaki on the 9th) were, that had long-standing impacts to the present day, particularly the elevated incidence of cancer from radiation.
These materials must be kept away from insidious, fanatical groups at all cost. Safety is paramount.
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“Reconstructing the formation of these glasses, the researchers state the plasma fireball exploded 580 m above the city with a radius of 260 m, a peak temperature of 107 K and a pressure of 106 atmospheres. A thermal wave touched the ground at temperatures of 6,287°C.”
https://phys.org/news/2024-02-hiroshima-fallout-debris-linked-solar.html
107 Kelvin is freezing cold. 107,000 C, perhaps?
OK, 10 to the 7th Kelvin and 10 to the 6th atmospheres. Jeezum Crow.
The Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs had taken a substantial fraction of the United States’ gross domestic product to make (plus probably the largest collection of Nobel laureate geniuses in history.) The knowledge is mostly out there now, but the ingredients are still much harder to cook up than commonly supposed. Al Quaida gave up on getting their own bomb, after being scammed multiple times by types like this one – if he’s flogging thorium as a bomb material, I doubt his ‘detectable traces of weapons-grade plutonium’ are much to be alarmed about.
I thought one good thing about the movie Oppenheimer was that it made a vivid demonstration of what a nuclear explosion was like, even a “small” one – perhaps for generations for whom that prospect has not seemed like a possibility.
Nuclear proliferation is my greatest concern with a global buildout of nuclear generation. I know nuclear enthusiasts assure us this is not a problem but concerns do remain among some knowledgeable folks.
A nuclear weapons expert posted her outsider’s view of
the “sting” used to get Takeshi Ebisawa on the nuclear materials charge. She says it looks plausible that the seller (TE) didn’t really have access to substantial nuclear material, but was more like he was trying to pass off small amounts of radioactive material* as something more than it was.
https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2024/02/the-nuclear-materials-in-the-ebisawa-indictment
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*My sister collected Vaseline glass and Fiestaware, including the “uranium red” pieces. You can also get radium from old glow-in-the-dark watches.
” In particular, the laboratory determined that the isotope composition of the plutonium found in the Nuclear Samples is weapons-grade, meaning that the plutonium, if produced in sufficient quantities, would be suitable for use in a nuclear weapon. ”
The above article states that the plutonium examined is, (presumably enriched), – this would be more than commercial applications would be allowed to use.
Most reactors don’t ‘use’ plutonium, they make it. A few, notably in France and Japan, use ‘Mox’ fuel, with a blend of plutonium from reprocessed spent fuel, and depleted or natural uranium. The spent fuel will have been at least 4.5 years in a reactor, so the plutonium will have been ‘toasted’ to the point where too much of the Pu239 will have absorbed another neutron, and become highly unstable Pu240 – the stuff that turned Kim Jong Un’s first couple of tests into ‘fizzles’, where the bomb self-destructs before an efficient chain reaction can get under way.
At the Bushehr civil power reactor in Iran (originally to be built by West Germany for the Shah, but completed by Russia), metal fragments were found in the primary circuit water, after damage to a pump. The fuel had to be unloaded for repairs, after only being in the core for a couple of months, and there was some speculation that the Iranians would try to score some for weapons material. However, I don’t think it had been runnng enough to make a worthwhile amount of plutonium, and in any case the Russians have contracted to take all used fuel back to Russia.
Your insight is very interesting, I’m a bit puzzled why Iran would need to obtain materials from dubious sources, as from Wikipedia I understand they have a few uranium mines of their own. I remember one of their top nuclear scientists was assassinated, but I’m sure they have more.
“Iran accelerated its production of uranium enriched to near-weapons grade levels in November, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).”
https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2024-01/news/iran-accelerates-highly-enriched-uranium-production
Iran’s main source of uranium is the Saghand mine, which has the capacity to produce 132,000 tonnes of ore per year. The country’s proven reserves are about 3,000 to 5,000 tons of uranium.
https://caspiannews.com/news-detail/iran-begins-exploitation-of-biggest-uranium-mine-2023-2-6-3/
The only thing a reactor contributes to constructing a uranium bomb is electricity. Iran is on the uranium track. Plutonium bomb material is created in a reactor, usually purpose built. as power reactors are normally piss poor at Plutonium production. Candu reactors are an exception (?)