{"id":312849,"date":"2026-03-04T17:08:15","date_gmt":"2026-03-04T17:08:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/312849\/"},"modified":"2026-03-04T17:08:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-04T17:08:15","slug":"us-court-convicts-japanese-yakuza-for-trafficking-nuclear-material-and-drugs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/312849\/","title":{"rendered":"US court convicts Japanese yakuza for trafficking nuclear material and drugs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>AFP<\/p>\n<p>4 Mar, 2026 03:12 AMQuick Read<\/p>\n<p>Subscribe to listenAccess to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.Subscribe now<\/p>\n<p>\u200c<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#\" class=\"flex cursor-pointer items-center gap-1.5 text-black\" data-test-ui=\"social-link--bookmark-above\" aria-label=\"bookmark\" id=\"social-link--bookmark-above\">Save<\/a>Share this articleCopy LinkEmailFacebookTwitter\/XLinkedInReddit<\/p>\n<p data-test-ui=\"figure__caption\">A Japanese yakuza member has been sentenced in New York for trafficking nuclear material, drugs and weapons. Photo \/ US Department of Justice<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">A member of Japan\u2019s yakuza crime group was sentenced to 20 years in prison by a New York court  today after being convicted of trafficking nuclear material as well as drugs and weapons.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">\n         Takeshi Ebisawa, 61, has been jailed since April 2022 on the drug and weapons charges, with<br \/>\n         his Thai co-defendant Somphop Singhasiri, following years of investigations by the United States Drug Enforcement Administration.\n        <\/p>\n<p class=\"NxxoOInEdsczGtg\" style=\"display:none\">In February 2024, he was also accused of trying to sell military-grade nuclear material, with narcotics including heroin and methamphetamine, to buy weapons including surface-to-air missiles for armed groups in Myanmar.<\/p>\n<p class=\"NxxoOInEdsczGtg\" style=\"display:none\">He pleaded guilty to a total of six charges in January 2025.<\/p>\n<p class=\"NxxoOInEdsczGtg\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cTakeshi Ebisawa has been held accountable for his crimes, including an attempt to sell weapons-grade plutonium to Iran and to flood New York with deadly narcotics,\u201d said John Eisenberg, the assistant attorney-general for national security.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"AFP 4 Mar, 2026 03:12 AMQuick Read Subscribe to listenAccess to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":312850,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[74,95,682,5767,85818,1349,6147,1757,2082,209,42,16847,1036,6287,1329,43,603,8442,5161,1865,40,38,41,39,20923,3040,14191,6436,170087,1530,2173],"class_list":{"0":"post-312849","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-after","9":"tag-and","10":"tag-being","11":"tag-convicted","12":"tag-convicts","13":"tag-court","14":"tag-crime","15":"tag-drugs","16":"tag-for","17":"tag-group","18":"tag-headlines","19":"tag-japans","20":"tag-japanese","21":"tag-material","22":"tag-member","23":"tag-news","24":"tag-nuclear","25":"tag-prison","26":"tag-sentenced","27":"tag-today","28":"tag-top-news","29":"tag-top-stories","30":"tag-topnews","31":"tag-topstories","32":"tag-trafficking","33":"tag-us","34":"tag-weapons","35":"tag-well","36":"tag-yakuza","37":"tag-years","38":"tag-york"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312849","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=312849"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312849\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/312850"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=312849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=312849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=312849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}