A group of men who allegedly tried to force major computer maker Fujitsu Ltd. into buying defense information apparently leaked from the company had threatened to sell it to North Korea, police said Wednesday.
Three men, including a former member of the Maritime Self-Defense Force, allegedly told Fujitsu they had stopped someone else from selling the data to the North, police said, without identifying the trio.
Kanagawa Prefectural Police are investigating the case after receiving a criminal complaint from Fujitsu on Tuesday and are close to identifying all the extortionists, they said.
They are investigating how the information was taken from the company and how the men obtained it.
The men demanded that Fujitsu buy the data in late June, saying it should do so if it did not want the information to be sold to North Korea, according to the police and other sources.
Fujitsu videotaped a meeting in which the men handed a company employee business cards bearing the names of Tokyo firms. Police have found that the firms exist in Tokyo.
One of the three men claimed to be the nephew of a former Defense Agency chief, they added, without elaborating.
The Defense Agency has also begun a probe. Computer data on the Self-Defense Forces are believed to have been taken or leaked from Fujitsu, which subcontracted an SDF computer network project to a software development company.
The data involved Internet Protocol addresses on a computer network used by the Ground Self-Defense Force and the Air Self-Defense Force, as well as data on computer networks used by the SDF, according to agency officials.
The leaked data are believed to have been compiled by Fujitsu and taken before it delivered the system to the agency late last year.