SPY SHIP CARRIED DRUGS

A North Korean spy ship sunk by Japan last year when it refused to
stop for coastguards was used to smuggle drugs to Yakuza gangsters,
Tokyo said yesterday.

Japan had already identified the ship, raised earlier this year, as a
North Korean spy vessel but yesterday Chikage Ogi, the transport
minister, said it delivered a third of a ton of stimulants to Japanese
gangsters in 1998.

Pyongyang is believed to be flooding Japan with amphetamines in an
attempt to earn hard currency to help prop up its collapsing economy.