The skipper of a South Korean crab boat has been arrested on suspicion poaching in Japan's exclusive economic zone, the coast guard said Thursday.
The JCG said the 29-ton vessel, originally detected around 12:30 a.m. Thursday off Hyogo Prefecture, was halted around 100 km northwest of the Oki Islands around 11:30 a.m. after it failed to comply with orders to halt and tried to flee, and the 39-year-old captain was nabbed.
The Japanese Embassy in Seoul earlier said both Japanese and South Korean maritime authorities boarded the vessel to jointly investigate and both sides concluded boat had been poaching.
Earlier, South Korea's Yonhap news agency, quoting a maritime police official, had reported that a "standoff" involving one South Korean patrol vessel and four Japanese boats had ensued after the crab boat was seized for entering Japanese waters.