An alleged leader in Japan’s Yakuza pleaded guilty on Wednesday to charges of attempting to traffic nuclear material sourced from war-ravaged Myanmar with the understanding that Iran would use it for a nuclear weapon.
Ebisawa was caught in a sting operation by the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). Prosecutors say he boasted to one of the DEA’s sources and the source’s associate, who posed as an Iranian general, that he had access to uranium and weapons-grade plutonium, alongside drugs, from Myanmar.
In 2020, Ebisawa sent the DEA source 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 substances. He continued communicating with the DEA sources in 2021 and 2022.
During the sting operation, including undercover agents, Thai authorities assisted US investigators in seizing two powdery yellow substances that the defendant described as “yellowcake”.
The Department of Justice said a US laboratory determined that the isotope composition of the plutonium found in the samples was in fact weapons-grade, “meaning that the plutonium, if produced in sufficient quantities, would be suitable for use in a nuclear weapon”.
We need a Japanese version of The Sopranos.
Translated from Japanese:
"I’m telling you, Shinjiro, this nuclear stuff I got from that Kenyan who couldn’t pay is harder to shake than shit after over eating pork buns. But, I think I may have a buyer down the line. I just told them I’m Iranian and looking for serious buyers only. They want to meet me at the local McDonald’s, which is weird, but I guess it’s as good a meeting place as any "
“AJ, get in the Eva!”
The story of that plutonium is almost certainly a wild ride. Probably some side from Myanmar conflict mined it with slave labor to exchange it for guns and ammo, duped guy into buying it as the next hot thing worth millions, only to then being pillaged in some storage (likely with zero precautions) for years as the guy struggled to find anyone to sell it to… but DEA agents. This gives off Snatched vibes.
I do not know how nuclear weapons work, but can weapons grade plutonium be mined? I thought you needed nuclear reactors for that stuff.
You are right. I asked Venice AI and that’s what it printed back:
Weapon-grade plutonium refers to plutonium that is highly enriched in the isotope plutonium-239 (Pu-239), which is suitable for use in nuclear weapons. It typically contains more than 90% Pu-239, with the remaining percentage consisting of other plutonium isotopes, such as Pu-240 and Pu-241.
Plutonium is not typically found in its pure form in nature and is usually produced through a process involving uranium. The production of weapon-grade plutonium involves several steps:
- Mining: Uranium ore is extracted from mines.
- Milling: The uranium ore is processed into a concentrated form called yellowcake (U3O8).
- Enrichment: The yellowcake is then converted into uranium hexafluoride gas (UF6) and enriched to increase the concentration of the U-235 isotope, which can undergo a chain reaction.
- Irradiation: The enriched uranium (typically around 3-5% U-235) is formed into fuel rods and irradiated in a nuclear reactor, where it undergoes neutron-induced reactions.
- Transmutation: During irradiation, some of the U-238 atoms absorb neutrons and undergo a series of radioactive decays, resulting in the formation of Pu-239.
- Reprocessing: After irradiation, the fuel rods are removed from the reactor and reprocessed to separate the plutonium from other radioactive materials.
The resulting plutonium can be further purified and separated into different isotopes using various chemical and physical processes, including solvent extraction, ion exchange, or electromagnetic separation.
The production of weapon-grade plutonium requires careful control over the neutron flux and irradiation time to minimize the formation of unwanted isotopes like Pu-240, which can make it more difficult to achieve a nuclear explosion.
It’s worth noting that not all plutonium produced through this process has weapons-grade purity. Reactor-grade plutonium, for example, typically contains around 50-60% Pu-239 and is not suitable for use in nuclear weapons due to its higher content of unwanted isotopes.
So someone somehow likely obtained a noticeable amount of already enriched plutonium to sell to this yakuza guy.
