TOKYO (TR) – A 38-year-old Canadian company executive has been arrested for smuggling about 320 kilograms of methamphetamine hidden inside large industrial machinery last year, reports NHK (Jan. 31).
According to police, Vincent Yat Sam Yeung, a company executive who provides construction consulting services in Shinjuku Ward, is suspected of smuggling kakuseizai, or methamphetamine, from the Port of Los Angeles in the United States into Japan at a port in Shinagawa Ward in December.
Yeung is believed to have received instructions from his superiors and smuggled the stimulants by hiding them inside a large industrial metal-processing machine weighing about 9 tons.
The stimulants were stored in bags of 1 kilogram each. A total of 321 bags were found inside the milling machine. The contraband has a street value of 21.1 billion yen, police said.
The industrial machine had been brought into Japan on a container ship, which was temporarily stored in a warehouse in Kuki City, Saitama Prefecture.
Acting on a tip, police entered the warehouse and found the drugs. It is believed that Yeung was trying to take the stimulants out of the warehouse.
The haul represents the largest amount of illicit drugs seized within the Tokyo Customs jurisdiction this year.
The milling machine was exported by a company in the state of Illinois in the United States. Drugs have also been found in milling machines exported by the same company to other countries.
Tokyo police are now considering whether an international organization may be involved in the smuggling.
