The purported leader of a Japan-based crime syndicate pleaded guilty Wednesday to charges alleging that he conspired to traffic uranium and plutonium from Myanmar in the belief that Iran would use it for nuclear weapons.
What a crazy story… I was wondering why the DEA was involved until I got to the part about them trafficking heroin and meth into the US.
But I did not know that there were ethnic insurgent groups in Myanmar who are mining weapons-grade radioactive materials…
Yeah this is the unsavory part of these “ethnic armies”. While the press and people in Myanmar see them as defenders of the people from the military junta, they are very much like the junta if not worse. It is military rule in the territories they control. Their armies (except the PDFs) are built by conscripting teens into their service. They are paid for with drugs, mining (uranium, rare earth, precious stones), black market goods, and establishment of gambling and scam centers. The leaders and their associates are often the ones who benefit the most. Some are ultra-rich (in one case a billionaire) now living abroad with washed money.
Based on documentaries I’ve watched on the situation in Myanmar, I had assumed it was the junta overseeing those mining operations. One of the insurgent forces having control and access to those materials is pretty wild.