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Report of 'suspicious people' in wet suits near Tokyo a hoax 01/08/2002 Tokyo (dpa) - A tip from a 41-year-old Japanese man that several ``suspicious people'' wearing wet suits entered Japan on Sunday night has turned out to be false, police and the coast guard said on Tuesday. The unidentified man from Kanagawa prefecture, next to Tokyo, told the Japan Coast Guard that five or six people wearing wet suits emerged from the sea about 7 p.m. Sunday on Enoshima Island while he was star watching with his wife. His claim led the coast guard to inspect the North Korean freighter Sonamu docked at Funabashi port in Chiba prefecture, near Kanagawa, on Monday. He reportedly told police that he invented the story as a way of dispelling his gloom following a quarrel with his wife. The coast guard deployed patrol boats and planes to search the area and found the Sonamu, bound for Funabashi. The North Korean ship refused permission to be boarded at that time, but the coast guard, along with police and immigration authorities, inspected it at Funabashi port Monday. The coast guard continued to search waters in Kanagawa, but did not find anything suspicious. Ambiguities in the man's report led the coast guard and the police to question him further. On December 22, a suspected North Korean spy ship sank off the southern coast of Japan after a dramatic ocean chase by the Japanese coast guard and a subsequent exchange of fire. About 15 crew members went missing when the ship sank. The coast guard recovered two bodies. One body had a life vest with Korean lettering. Two coast guards were injured in the gunfight. |
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