Okinawa Prefectural Police headquarters (Mainichi/Takayasu Endo)

       NAHA -- Okinawa Prefectural Police and other authorities apprehended 12 people including three members and a civilian employee of the U.S. Marines in Okinawa on suspicion of smuggling cannabis and cocaine into Japan from the United States through military postal services that delivered items to U.S. bases, it has been learned.

       Prefectural police and other authorities are investigating the background to the cases over the possibility that illegal drugs were distributed in Japan via a U.S. military base route.

       On Dec. 22, Okinawa Prefectural Police announced there had been arrests between June and December 2021 of 10 people including Satoshi Kominami, 29, an unemployed man of no fixed address, in a joint investigation with Okinawa Regional Customs and the U.S. Naval Criminal Investigative Service in Japan. They are accused of violating Japan's Narcotics and Psychotropics Control Law and Cannabis Control Law through importing with intent to sell. The arrested people included a 29-year-old male civilian employee of the U.S. Marines stationed in Okinawa, and a 24-year-old male member.

       The suspects are mainly accused of importing a total of 2.25 kilograms of cocaine with a street value of about 45 million yen (approx. $394,000) and about 2 kg of cannabis liquid from the United States over three occasions from June.

       According to prefectural police and customs, the cocaine was packed in cardboard boxes, and arrived at a post office in the U.S. military's Makiminato Service Area in the Okinawa Prefecture city of Urasoe as unofficial military postal items. The civilian employee received the packages, and handed them to others including a Brazilian woman. The Marine is also suspected of involvement in receipt of the cannabis liquid. Kominami is believed to have played a central role in selling the illegal drugs in the Tokyo metropolitan area and other locations.

       In addition to this group, the Naha District Public Prosecutors Office in November indicted a 26-year-old corporal and 25-year-old lance corporal of the U.S. Marines, on a charge of violating the Cannabis Control Law by importing drugs with intent to sell them. According to the indictment, they used the military postal service in April to import about 156 grams of marijuana plant parts into the Makiminato Service Area from the United States.

       (Japanese original by Takayasu Endo and Nozomu Takeuchi, Naha Bureau)

       Font Size S M L Print Timeline 0