According to Kyodo (Via Breitbart):
Police on Thursday arrested the operator and an employee of a trading company in Sakaiminato, Tottori Prefecture, on suspicion of illegally exporting pianos to North Korea in violation of a ban on the export of “luxury” items to the country, investigative sources said.
The company is suspected of having exported several pianos worth some 4 million yen from February to the fall of 2009 to North Korea via Dalian in northeastern China, in violation of the foreign trade control law, according to the sources.
Japan banned the export of luxury items to North Korea in November 2006 in response to the country’s first nuclear test a month earlier and expanded the ban to cover all exports to North Korea in June last year, due to Pyongyang’s second nuclear test and unresolved issues including the abduction of Japanese nationals.
In late May, the Tottori prefectural police raided the company’s office and other related locations and have since analyzed confiscated materials such as account ledgers, the sources said.
According to the corporate registry, the company was established in June 2006, with 10 employees. It sells and exports secondhand goods and also engages in the collection and delivery of industrial waste.
Police arrest 2 for illegal ‘luxury’ exports to N. Korea
Kyodo (via Breitbart)
7/8/2010
