A North Korean spy is now on the wanted list of the Japanese police for directing a plot to kidnap a Japanese national to North Korea in 1977. It is the first time that an arrest warrant has been issued for a North Korean directly involved in a kidnapping case. If he is arrested, it will shed light on other similar cases as well.
Investigations have revealed that Mr. Yutaka Kume, then a security guard at Tokyo's Mitaka city hall, disappeared from a beach in the town of Noto, Ishikawa Prefecture, in September of that year. Mr. Kume is one of 15 Japanese nationals who the government says were abducted by North Korean agents from the 1970s to the 1980s.
According to the Metropolitan Police Department and the Ishikawa prefectural police, Kim Se Ho, in conspiracy with several North Korean residents in Japan, approached Mr. Kume in Tokyo with an offer of a lucrative trade deal, and took him to the Noto beach in Ishikawa. There, they handed Mr. Kume over to another agent for a boat trip to North Korea across the Sea of Japan.