A former intelligence agency chief was sentenced to a suspended 34-month prison term Thursday for his role in a 2007 investment scam aimed at swindling the pro-Pyongyang group Chongryon out of ownership of its Tokyo headquarters.
The Tokyo District Court said Shigetake Ogata, 75, who headed the Public Security Intelligence Agency between 1993 and 1995, was also responsible for defrauding Chongryon, or the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan, out of ¥484 million while negotiating the ownership transfer.
The court also handed down a suspended three-year prison term to Tadao Mitsui, 75, a former real estate agent the court called the mastermind of the scam.