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.

The first was 70-year-old businessman Kim Yong Jak, president of the Chosen Tokusanbutsu Hanbai trading corporation. Based out of Taito Ward, Tokyo, Chosen Tokusanbutsu Hanbai was the largest importer of North Korean mushrooms in Japan before a government ban in 2006. Also arrested was an associate, the