SAPPORO – Police searched an office building Sunday in Hokkaido belonging to the pro-Pyongyang group Chongryon on suspicion that its affiliate companies swindled the government out of subsidies given to businesses for hiring unemployed job seekers.
Investigators said several companies in Sapporo with links to Chongryon, or the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan, are accused of misleading officials in order to collect subsidies by claiming they had hired staff from a school in the city for ethnic Koreans that had allegedly lost their jobs. Those hired were not unemployed, authorities said.
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