Three men have been indicted for allegedly smuggling into Japan about 46,000 tablets of Ecstasy, police said Wednesday.
Takami Mitsumoto, 33, Shoichi Sasaki, 37, and Makoto Abe, 52, were arrested last month by the Metropolitan Police Department and Tokyo Customs over the fourth-largest amount of Ecstasy seized in a single case in Japan, the MPD said. The haul has a street value of around 180 million yen.
The MPD said it was the largest bust under its jurisdiction.
The Tokyo District Public Prosecutor's Office indicted the three last week for illegally importing drugs.
Police are checking for links to a case in July in which Hyogo Prefectural Police and Kobe Customs arrested seven suspects for allegedly smuggling 60,000 tablets of Ecstasy into Japan. This case was the nation's largest Ecstasy haul.
The method used to smuggle the Ecstasy was similar in both cases, investigative authorities said.
Mitsumoto, Sasaki and Abe allegedly received a wooden table in September that contained 45,869 tablets of Ecstasy hidden in a hollowed-out top section, according to investigations. The table was shipped to Japan from Belgium via the Netherlands.
Tokyo Customs authorities spotted the drugs during an X-ray inspection, police said.
The three suspects were quoted as telling police that a "foreign" man asked them to receive a package in return for cash.