ROCKETMAN: Here, the alleged yakuza boss is photographed in Copenhagen – with a rocket launcher. Photo: US MAGISTRATE JUDGE/SDNY
Three years ago, the Japanese was tricked into a trap in Denmark. Then he was caught again.
Monday 26 February at 00:05
In the photo, Takeshi Ebisawa (60) holds a rocket launcher.
According to US authorities, he believes he is there to inspect weapons.
What he does not know is that those who meet him when the photo is taken in a department store in Copenhagen are secret agents from the Danish police and the American DEADrug Enforcement Agency.
Now the picture is going around the world – again – three years after the secret operation in Denmark. And two years after he was arrested.
American authorities expanded the indictment against Ebisawa. They announced this themselves in a press release Wednesday.
They claim he has tried to sell nuclear material – for use in nuclear weapons.
Five, of the total of eight charges against him, can alone lead to life in prison in the United States.
Revealed by secret agent
– He is accused of conspiring to sell weapons-grade nuclear material and deadly drugs from Burma, and to buy military weapons on behalf of an armed rebel group, says Assistant Attorney General Mathew Olsen in a statement.
According to BBC he must have shown radioactive material to an undercover agent from the DEA when he was in Thailand.
They write that the radioactive material came from Myanmar.
Pictures that the Department of Justice in the United States has released are said to have been sent from Ebisawa and show a Geiger counter that measures radioactivity next to what is supposed to be radioactive material.
Photo: US Department of Justice
The secret agent is said to have posed as an arms dealer with links to an Iranian general.
– It is impossible to emphasize how serious this is, says Olsen in the statement.
The Thai authorities are said to have, among other things, seized radioactive samples in connection with the meeting.
Photo: US Department of Justice
A laboratory in the USA has concluded that they contained uranium, thorium and plutonium.
According to BBC Ebisawa is now being held in custody in Brooklyn outside New York.
– Evil
The US believes Ebisawa is one of the leaders of the Japanese mafia – also known under the collective term “yakuza”.
American journalist and yakuza expert Jake Adelstein doubts that.
– I don’t doubt that he is a criminal, but a yakuza boss? he asks X rhetorically.
Dubious.
I don’t doubt that Mr. Ebisawa was involved in a crazy scheme and may be a criminal—but “yakuza boss”?
There is no “the yakuza”
So the question is: which group, if any did he belong to?
Inagawa-Kai? Sumiyoshi?
Anyone know?
Does the DEA?https://t.co/SyTNqHzXfD— Jake Adelstein/Nakamoto Philosophy (@jakeadelstein) February 22, 2024
– He looks like an idiot, he says TV2 om Ebisawa.
– This is an extraordinary example of how far drug traffickers, who do not care about human life, are willing to go. I commend the men and women of the DEA, and the prosecution team, for their work to protect us from such evil, says Anne Milgram of the DEA in a statement.
Ebisawa is also accused of trying to buy weapons for rebel groups and money laundering.
A Thai man, who is supposed to be his co-conspirator, has also been arrested and charged in the case.
– It is frightening to imagine the consequences if these two had succeeded, says Assistant Attorney General Mathew G. Olsen.
2024-02-25 23:05:33
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