Myanmar Generals’ nuclear dreams are Asian crime bosses' hope to defend their last citadel

Earlier this month, United States prosecutors announced the prosecution of Japanese Yakuza crime boss Takeshi Ebisawa and his Thai associate Somphop Singhasiri, both arrested in 2022 for trafficking "weapons-grade nuclear material". Funds raised from the deal, prosecutors allege, were to finance the purchase of weapons for a so-far unidentified insurgent group from Myanmar. Looking out from the terrace, Sternberg could see the wide open ground below where hundreds, bankrupted by their pleasures, "had speeded the return to the street below by jumping off the roof". From colonial Shanghai's Avenue Edouard VII—named after the King of England and flamboyant playboy reviled…