Four bodies were recovered from a wooden boat found entangled in a fishing net off Aomori Prefecture, the Japan Coast Guard said.
The boat, spotted Wednesday, may have come from North Korea, according to the Aomori Coast Guard Office.
The bodies were recovered Sunday. Measuring roughly 15 meters long and 2 meters wide, the boat is similar in shape to a wooden vessel marked with Hangul characters that washed up in the same area in October, the Coast Guard said.