US authorities this week arrested a man accused of being one of the bosses of the Japanese Yakuza mafia, on charges of distributing drugs and buying weapons in the country, including so-called surface-to-air missiles (SAM), designed to shoot down aircraft.
Takeshi Ebisawa, 57, according to federal prosecutors in New York, tried to buy missiles for rebel groups in Myanmar and Sri Lanka in conversations with an undercover DEA agent. He also planned to smuggle heroin and methamphetamine across the United States and buy weapons to protect shipments of the drugs, according to the complaint released Thursday.
He was detained along with three other men, Sompak Rukrasaranee, Somphob Singhasiri and Suksan Jullanan, between Monday and Tuesday. Jullanan holds dual Thai and American nationality, while Singhasiri and Rukrasaranee are Thai citizens. They could be sentenced to life in prison, prosecutors say.
During the investigation, Ebisawa told the undercover DEA agent that Jullanan was a general in the Thai Air Force and Rukrasaranee was a retired Thai military officer, according to the indictment.
Investigated by DEA agents in Thailand since 2019, the men organized the sale to an undercover agent of large amounts of heroin and methamphetamine that would come from the rebel United State Army in Myanmar, the armed wing of the government of the Wa ethnic minority autonomous region. .
Ebisawa, in turn, tried to buy automatic weapons, rocket launchers, machine guns and surface-to-air missiles for the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), an armed group in Sri Lanka, and for the United Wa State Army, the Karen National Union and the Shan State Army, ethnic minority armed forces fighting the Myanmar government.
On February 3, 2021, Ebisawa and another man traveled to Copenhagen, where an undercover DEA agent and two undercover Danish officers showed them US military weapons for sale, including machine guns and anti-tank missiles, according to the indictment.
They also showed Ebisawa photos and videos of Stinger missiles that can shoot down planes. “Ebisawa and his co-conspirators made arrangements with an undercover DEA agent to buy heavy weapons and sell large amounts of illegal drugs,” the Justice Department said. “Drugs were destined for the streets of New York, and weapons were aimed at factions in unstable nations.”
The Justice Department did not explain how the four men arrived in the United States when they were arrested in New York.
