KITAKYUSHU (Kyodo) The Japan Coast Guard plans to arrest the president of a shipping firm for allegedly exporting a used fishing vessel to South Korea without obtaining approval from the trade minister, officials said Monday.
The ship, which was registered with a fisheries cooperative association in Hyogo Prefecture, bears the same name as one of the two North Korean ships that intruded into Japanese waters in March 1999 and escaped pursuit, they said.
The coast guard's Moji branch in Kitakyushu will search for possible connections between the intrusion and the illegal export by the head of the company, which is based in Tagajo, Miyagi Prefecture, according to the officials.
The firm's president, 64, who is to be arrested for violating the foreign exchange law, exported the 75.49-ton Yamato Maru No. 2 to South Korea without obtaining necessary approval from the government, the officials said.
In late March 1999, two ships first identified in waters east of the Noto Peninsula in Ishikawa Prefecture refused to stop after Maritime Self-Defense Force vessels fired repeated warning shots and patrol planes dropped bombs near the vessels.