Sorry I’ve been so absent lately. I’ve just been really, really, really busy. Anyway, James and Andy have done a wonderful job in the interim.
The Japanese have raided yet another business — Horkos, based un-ironically in Hiroshima Prefecture — for export control violations. Horkos is accused of exporting machining centers without the proper license. High-end machining centers can be used to manufacture centrifuge components:
A listed item requires approval for export by the minister. Horkos is suspected of falsely declaring more than one such machine tool as of lower caliber that does not require ministerial authorization for exports. The tools are suspected of having been exported to South Korea by ship in 2004.
The buyer is a general company that is not involved in weapons development but the machine tools may have been resold, the police said.
The BBC adds that “Police say the equipment, which was sent to South Korea, could have been sold to North Korea or the Middle East.” Could? Sounds like speculation to me. (AFP and AP are more restrained.)
The Horkos website is still up, by the way — with a helpful list of products. Maybe someone with better technical chops than mine (which is to say, any) would like to figure out which of the machines are controlled. For a reference point, I recall that Urs Tunner bought a Cincinnati Hawk 150 Machining Center for SCOPE.)
Seems to be a lot of this going around in Japan — although this sounds like a coincidence.