NUCLEAR TRAFFICKING SUMMARY

March 2024

For people who are not able to read the full nuclear trafficking indictment, these are some of its more interesting points.

It is a superseding indictment approved by a Grand Jury in New York, which considered the evidence in secret. Superseding means that there was an earlier approved but unreleased indictment of which this is a newer and extended version.

The indictment covers a conspiracy to traffic nuclear materials from Burma to other countries, which materials included uranium, thorium and plutonium.

Yawd Serk, who has been identified as CC-1, is "not named as a defendant herein." (That is limited to the Japanese gangster and one of his associates.) But he participated in meetings for the crime and which meetings were videotaped. He is directly included in the indictment as a co-conspirator, who perpetrated the "overt" acts that comprised the nuclear trafficking crime.

This means he can be charged at any time, including through another still secret (sealed) indictment.

They first started trying to sell the nuclear materials in early 2020. They said they had 100 kg of yellowcake uranium (triuranium octoxide - U308) ready to go, and could produce 500 kg more in thirty days. They also had 2,000 kg of thorium-232, and said they could produce in total as much as 5,000 kg of processed nuclear materials.

Yawd Serk provided samples which tested positive for yellowcake uranium, thorium and plutonium.

These samples were seized in May 2022.

The two named defendants were also charged with smuggling narcotics and anti-aircraft missiles (and which charges also referenced other unnamed co-conspirators).