Police have arrested two men and are seeking another on suspicion of smuggling a banned type of chlorofluorocarbon into Japan, police and customs authorities said Friday.
The arrested men were named as Yuichiro Nakazono, 33, unemployed and of no fixed address, and Kenji Araki, 40, a car sales company president and resident of Fukuoka Prefecture, the authorities said, adding the two have admitted most of the allegations.
Authorities are also trying to locate a 28-year-old man who resides in Kitakyushu and sells car parts, police said.
CFC, an industrial chemical used in refrigeration systems, air conditioners, solvents and other products, damages the ozone layer and its production and import have been banned under international agreements.
Investigations showed the three falsely filed an import application for a CFC substitute that is allowed, but smuggled in about 36,000 cans of the banned CFC 12 instead.
Authorities said the CFC cans, each weighing 310 grams, arrived at a container terminal in Kitakyushu on June 25 from China.
The three are also believed to have smuggled into Japan and sold about 350,000 cans of CFC 12 from August 2000 on 10 occasions, the authorities said.
In addition to the charge of violating the Customs Law, the authorities said they are investigating the case as a possible violation of the Foreign Exchange and Foreign Trade Control Law.
Since late 1995, production and import of CFCs has been banned in Japan but the products are smuggled in from developing countries, where CFC production is allowed, according to authorities.