Posted on 11/28/2006 6:53:09 AM PST by TigerLikesRooster
Chongryon sites searched over drugs
The Yomiuri Shimbun
Police confront officials of the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan (Chongryon) at its Tokyo headquarters in Bunkyo Ward, on Monday morning.Police searched the Tokyo metropolitan headquarters of the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan (Chongryon) and six other locations Monday in connection with a case in which a female Korean resident attempted to smuggle intravenous solutions from Japan to North Korea during a visit in May.
The woman's husband is an executive of the Korean Association of Science and Technology in Japan, an organization affiliated with Chongryon.
The woman, 74, is suspected of having received the intravenous solutions from a physician in Tokyo without authorization in May, police said. They are investigating the case on suspicion of violation of the Pharmaceutical Affairs Law.
The woman allegedly tried to take 60 bags of the intravenous solution to North Korea, along with 120 ampoules of liquid drugs, without declaring them when she boarded the Man Gyong Bong-92 at a Niigata port later in the month to take part in a visit-to-the-motherland project organized by Chongryon, a pro-Pyongyang group.
The intravenous solution is used to feed amino acids to patients after surgery, while the liquid drugs are used to prevent liver inflammation and delay the progress of liver cancer. The latter drugs can also be used to treat people exposed to radiation.
The police suspect the liquid drugs were meant to be used to treat scientists involved in North Korea's nuclear program.
The 59-year-old physician is believed to have handed over the bags of intravenous solution to the woman at the request of another woman, also a pro-Pyongyang Korean resident in Japan.
In addition to Chongryon's Tokyo metropolitan headquarters in Bunkyo Ward, investigators from the public safety division of the Metropolitan Police Department searched the woman's home, a clinic in Setagaya Ward where the physician in question works, a Chongryon-related facility in Niigata and three other locations.
The intravenous solution bags and ampoules were found, hidden in corrugated cardboard boxes packed with clothes and other belongings, according to the Niigata customs office. Officials stopped the transport of the drugs because they had not been declared for export.
The woman's husband was listed as an executive of the Korean Association of Science and Technology on a list of names police obtained in October last year in connection with another case of violation of the Pharmaceutical Affairs Law.
Police will investigate whether the husband and the science and technology association were involved in the alleged illegal drug transactions.
The association is a Chongryon umbrella organization consisting of engineering graduates from such prestigious universities as Tokyo University and Kyoto University.
(Nov. 28, 2006)
Ping!
Well...well...What have we here?
Cobalt Thorium G ?
I wonder if Chia Pet has called Vlady since he know thing or two about radiation poison LOL!
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