April 23, 2024
Analysis

The prized mushroom that may help fund Pyongyang

What North Korea has to do with three men arrested in Japan for illicit trafficking of ‘matsutake’

It was early morning on May 12 when Japan’s finest came knocking.

In coordinated raids by the police forces of the Kyoto, Kanagawa, Shimane and Yamaguchi prefectures, three portly middle aged and elderly men were taken away in handcuffs and charged with smuggling one of the world’s rarest, most prized mushrooms: the matsutake.

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