Japanese police are investigating Seishin Enterprise Co. in Tokyo for illegally exporting equipment to North Korea in 1994 that could be used to produce solid missile fuel, the Asahi Shimbun reported today.  The company is also being investigated for similar illegal exports to Iran.

Police reportedly searched the company’s facilities earlier this week on suspicion it trained Iranian experts how to use a jet mill, which can be used to produce solid missile fuel (see GSN, Feb. 5).

Authorities now suspect that Seishin sold a jet mill to a company affiliated with the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan, a pro-North Korea organization, according to Asahi Shimbun.  Seishin shipped the mill and related equipment to a warehouse in the Japanese port of Niigata in March 1994, and a few days later, a North Korean passenger-cargo ship docked at the port.  Police suspect that the mill was loaded onto the ship and sent to a company associated with the North Korean military, Asahi Shimbun reported.

Seishin did not receive governmental approval for the export and submitted false documents to customs officials in Niigata, saying the mill did not have military uses, sources said (Asahi Shimbun, Feb. 6).

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