The National Police Agency, investigating the 1973 disappearances of a mother and her two children, has concluded that the two children were abducted by North Korean agents. The NPA will obtain a warrant for the arrest of a woman suspected of having masterminded the abduction and put her on an international wanted list. The woman is believed to be in North Korea.
The missing mother, Hideko Watanabe, then 32, was living in Kamifukuoka (now Fujimino), Saitama Prefecture. Her husband, a pro-Pyongyang Korean resident in Japan, disappeared in June 1973. Around December that year, the mother, her 6-year-old daughter and 3-year-old son disappeared. It is suspected that North Korean agents took the two children to North Korea in mid-June 1974. The police believe that a boat took the children from the Sea of Japan coast in Obama, Fukui Prefecture, to North Korea. It is suspected that the mother was murdered.
The police are making progress in the investigation of abductions by North Korean agents. They obtained an arrest warrant in November 2006 in connection with the August 1978 abduction of Ms. Hitomi Soga and her mother, and obtained another arrest warrant in February 2007 in connection with the July 1978 abduction of Mr. Kaoru Hasuike and Ms. Yukiko Okudo.