This is a rough translation of the final blog that Junichi Sato wrote before he was arrested in Tokyo for allegedly stealing a box of whale meat, itself stolen from the Japanese taxpayers, that he presented to police as evidence of widescale fraud in the whaling industry:
According to some juicy information received by our team in Japan, the crew members of the Nisshin Maru and the rest of the whaling fleet, who would by now have already left port for the annual North Pacific whale hunt, have been ordered to stay at home. Bummer for them - but it gives the whales a reprieve, for now.
The information came to us just two weeks after we revealed a major scandal of stolen whale meat from the Southern Ocean hunt - allegations which are now being fully investigated by the Tokyo District Public Prosecutor. Read more »
Following last week’s revelation that crew members from the fleet responsible for Japan’s so-called ’scientific’ whaling programme had for many years been stealing and illegally selling off prime whale bacon at the end of each annual hunt.
Last week more than 40,000 Greenpeace supporters wrote to the Japanese government to demand an investigation. Yesterday the Tokyo district Public Prosecutor has confirmed that there will be one.
Greenpeace will be cooperating in every way possible to ensure that it is a full investigation, to the highest levels and not simply the scapegoating of a few individual crew members.
Greenpeace Japan spent four months cracking open what appears to be a major conspiracy of corruption at the heart of Japan’s government-backed, sham scientific whaling operation. An informer associated with whale hunting company Kyodo Senpaku told us that not only their employees were involved - officials from the Institute of Cetacean Research (ICR) - the agency that carries out the so-called “scientific research” work on board the whaler’s factory ship Nisshin Maru - were almost certainly aware of the thefts as well.
While the investigation is underway, we all need to push the Japanese government now to shut down whaling and cut off its tax subsidies (which currently amount to around £2.4 million every year). We also want to ensure that they investigate this scandal at the highest level - not just by scapegoating crew members.
Please send a message to the Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Japan!
This is more about the whale meat scandal from Brian up at Greenpeace International in Amsterdam…
Finally, we can tell the story some of us have been sitting on for months now: the whale meat embezzlement we uncovered in Japan, in which stolen cuts of prime whale bacon are smuggled away from the “scientific research” vessels and sold for oodles of yen — one of our informers heard a crew member claim he built a house on his illegal proceeds.
We hit the front page of Japan’s biggest newspaper, Asahi Shimbun, this morning — a first for Greenpeace in Japan, where whale stories have always been hard to sell. But with the Japanese government in seeming constant free fall with corruption scandals being unearthed all the time, whale meat embezzlement — especially since it involves taxpayers’ money — is a monster story.
Stake outs, testimony from informers, hidden cameras and tailing trucks full of stolen goods - it reads like a Hollywood movie, but it was an every day experience for Greenpeace activists in Japan, who have spent four months cracking open a major conspiracy of corruption at the heart of Japan’s government-backed, sham scientific whaling operation.
Today we displayed a cardboard box filled with the best cuts of whale meat, smuggled ashore by the crew of the Japanese whaling factory ship, Nisshin Maru, for illegal trade and personal gain, at the Japanese taxpayer’s expense. The box, along with videotaped testimony and other evidence, suggest widespread embezzelment of whale meat has been occuring for decades under the noses of the public officials who run the whaling programme, and are allowing it to happen.
Bureaucrats ignore theft from taxpayers
Our activists delivered the evidence, including the whale meat, to the Public Prosecutor’s office in Tokyo, calling on it to make a full public enquiry into how deep the corruption runs with the whaling programme. We’re also calling for an end to the USD$4.7 million taxpayer subsidies for the programme, and for the license of the company operating the whale hunt, Kyodo Senpaku, to be withdrawn.
The four-month Greenpeace investigation employed undercover tactics to reveal dramatic evidence of an embezzlement ring involving crewmembers on board the Nisshin Maru. Informers who spoke to the activists claim that senior crew and officials from Kyodo Senpaku turned a blind eye to the whale meat theft, allowing it to continue for decades. One informer associated with Kyodo Senpaku told Greenpeace that officials from the Institute of Cetacean Research (ICR) - the agency that carries out the so-called “scientific research” work on board the Nisshin Maru - are most likely aware of the thefts as well.
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