From “FSB Detains Diplomat at Japanese Consulate General in Vladivostok on Spying Charges, Deports Him” (https://sputniknews.jp/20220927/13094568.html), Sputnik Japan, September 27, purportedly Consul General Motoki Tatsunori
On September 26, the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) announced that it had detained a consul at the Japanese Consulate General in Vladivostok for espionage activities in which he was paid to obtain information. The consul was declared “persona non grata” (an undesirable person), and the consul has already been released.
In the September 27 edition of Sputnik Japan, “FSB Detains Diplomat at Japanese Consulate General in Vladivostok on Spying Charges, Deports Him” (https://sputniknews.jp/20220927/13094568.html), the alleged consul, Motoki Tatsunori, is shown with his face on the screen. The film also shows a scene in which he hands over documents to the consul.
When we spoke to a government source about the case, he said, “There is a lot to think about,” and he had the following to say.
The arrest of a consular official of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was shocking. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has the post of consul above the post of secretary, which is in charge of various administrative aspects, and it is surprising that a person in such a post is engaged in intelligence-gathering activities. Since diplomats are replaced every two years or so, if there was a network in place to collect information, there would be a succession of subjects. In this case, we are wondering whether the consul has taken over the network from generation to generation, or whether Motoki, the person who was captured this time, developed the network by himself. If he did so on his own, it would be a great achievement, but on the other hand, there is a possibility that he was framed by the Russians. If the scene in which he provides the documents was filmed, the Russians must have been waiting for the right moment to make him a target for a long time. On the other hand, Motoki’s act can only be seen as a foolish one, as he did not consider the danger to himself in not being caught because of his diplomatic immunity. Normally, such “exchanging of things” should be done in a private room, but since Russia does not have a culture of private rooms, it is probably inevitable.
It was also shocking to learn that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was offering money for information gathering. One media person I spoke with told me that “the Ministry of Foreign Affairs does not have an expense account for monetary expenditures related to intelligence gathering, etc., so there is no money at all. On the other hand, I have also heard that “a huge amount of money was transferred to a certain person regarding the North Korean issue,” and I wonder which is correct. If there is “no expense account, but there is money available,” it would be the confidentiality fee. Or, it is possible that the money was spent by individual consuls.
Filming and publicizing such espionage activities is a common practice in socialist countries and organizations. In Japan, the police and other public security officials conduct investigations of people affiliated with far-left groups, and in some cases, far-left groups have discovered the homes of public security officials and published their homes in their newspapers, saying that they are the homes of the enemy.
On the other hand, the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, a group of Koreans living in Japan, once published in its official newspaper, Choson Shimpo, scenes from a tavern where it was in contact with Korean embassy staff and collaborators, who are Koreans living in Japan. In any case, one must be cautious when gathering information in socialist countries such as Russia, China, and North Korea. The arrests in this case make us think about this again.