North Korea Stole a 13 Year Old Girl and Lied About It for Decades

Added: 2026-05-08

[00:00:00]Hello everybody, welcome back to another episode of the Casual Criminalist.

[00:00:02]Today, the abduction of Megumi Yokota by Tomara. Thank you Tomara, who wrote today's script. Kind of a short one. I mean, 12 pages. I guess it's short for a Casual Criminalist. But, uh let's just jump into it, shall we? The format of the show, if you're new here, I'm Simon.

[00:00:15]I've never read this before. I'm going to read it and explore it together, dear viewer or listener.

[00:00:23]>> [music] >> On the 15th of November, 1977, after an enjoyable afternoon at the badminton club, a group of young girls were walking home from Yuri Junior High School in Niigata City, Japan. Wait, holy [ __ ] do we have a Japan script that is not written by George? George is like always our man in Japan. But today, Tomara is our woman in Japan. As the students parted ways on what must have seemed like a day as ordinary as any other, they had no reason to suspect that they would never see their friend, 13-year-old Megumi Yokota, ever again.

[00:00:58]When Megumi wasn't home in time for dinner, her mother, Sakie, went out to look for her. It was only a 600-m walk between the school and their house, so perhaps she reasoned Megumi had gone to visit a friend or neighbor. But as Sakie went door-to-door, her heart began to sink and panic would inevitably set in.

[00:01:14]Oh god, miserable. Unbeknownst to Sakie, it was too late. Megumi had already been taken out of Japan and would spend the rest of her life living in North Korea.

[00:01:26]Oh [ __ ] why? What? The mystery behind what What, she's Japanese? What's going on? Why? I know the North Koreans kidnap people. Like, there's the famous like, was it the the currently Kim Jong-un's dad who was like super into movies and he was like, you know, I'll just kidnap some movie directors so they could make films for me, for my pleasure.

[00:01:45]Psycho. Just before we continue with today's episode, I want to tell you about this book that I came across.

[00:01:50]Entering from the bottom of the screen.

[00:01:53]It's basically a guide to surviving the end of the world, but done in a way that is actually interesting. It's called The Four, the illustrated survival guide.

[00:02:02]Instead of just being one scenario, it goes through four different ones. Zombie outbreak. Oh, here it's telling me about edible mushrooms.

[00:02:10]Uh also a pandemic, a nuclear winter, and climate collapse, all four in here.

[00:02:15]And it does it in a really beautiful way. Each of these different scenarios feels like a different world. It's got different art styles. I suppose I should show you rather than just looking at it myself. Every page you open it up on, oh look, there's a guy who's bald and with a beard and everyone's going to say he looks like me.

[00:02:30]You could open it up on any page and it's going to be something that looks really nice and you'll learn something as well. How useful it will be, I guess that depends on whether the world ends.

[00:02:39]This one's all about the turbo stove.

[00:02:41]Oh.

[00:02:43]This is cool.

[00:02:44]This is very cool. And it doesn't read like a boring survival manual. It's more like a mix between graphic novel and a field guide. You get these really detailed hand-drawn illustrations and then actual practical ideas layered in.

[00:02:56]It was originally funded on Kickstarter, raised over $600,000.

[00:03:00]And honestly, when you see it, that makes sense. It's a big, heavy, beautiful book. This is the sort of thing you put on a coffee table and people will flick through it. It also feels really nice. It's got It's like matte cover.

[00:03:12]It's not on my talking points, but it's very nice. If you want to check it out, there is a link in the description or scan the QR code on the screen now and use the code Criminalist for book for a discount. It's a fantastic book. I thoroughly recommend it. And now back to today's video. The mystery behind what happened to Megumi would ignite a series of events that would bring the international relations between Japan and North Korea to a near breaking point. Now, as the 50th anniversary of her last sighting draws closer, her family still wants to know what really happened to Megumi and where is she now?

[00:03:42]She'd be 63 years old. Oh my god, this is wild.

[00:03:47]The missing 17.

[00:03:53]From the late 1970s to early 1980s, Japan experienced a surge of disappearances where the number of people going missing every year, typically averaging around 85,000 per year, spiked to over 105,000 in 1981.

[00:04:06]And people began to take notice, particularly in cities with direct coastal access, where the numbers were not only disproportionately high, but the circumstances surrounding the disappearances were downright weird.

[00:04:17]Wait, are they talking about being near the coast? So like, some North Korean abductor can get someone onto a boat and whip them across the ocean to North Korea, which is quite far. In October 1977, the same year that Megumi was last seen, 29-year-old Kiyoko Matsumoto left her home in Tottori Prefecture around 8:00 p.m. to walk to a local knitting class. The last confirmed sighting of Kiyoko was by her mother, although an acquaintance believed she saw Kiyoko talking to two nefarious-looking individuals. She attempted to intervene and upon approaching the strangers, was knocked out and left unconscious. While I couldn't find official reports on government websites substantiating the claim from the acquaintance, the police did find one of Kiyoko's sandals at the scene, lending credence to the theory that she was taken against her will. I mean, yeah.

[00:05:07]>> [laughter] >> I'd say so. The following year, Yasushi Chimura and his fiancee, Fukie Hamamoto, from Fukui Prefecture, were one of three young couples in their 20s who went missing in July and August.

[00:05:20]Wait. This is all over the place.

[00:05:22]They're kidnapping girls, they're kidnapping women in their 20s, they're kidnapping couples. Who?

[00:05:30]Why? What's going on? On a warm summer evening, they went on a date to Obama Park and were last seen standing on the observation deck stargazing. After that, nothing. It has been suggested that a very skilled operative might have dosed them, placed their bodies in bags, and then slid them down the slope to the shore below before escaping the scene in a boat. However, it deserves to be said that real life rarely plays out like a spy novel, and as a result, the vanishing of the young couple was categorized as unexplained. The other two couples disappeared in a fairly similar manner. I mean, how can you say it's a similar manner? They just disappeared. There doesn't seem to be anything to explain it. I guess there's similarity in nothingness. Shuichi Ishikawa and Rumiko Matsumoto from the Kagoshima Prefecture went on a date to watch the setting sun on the beach. They never returned home. Is Matsumoto like Smith in Japan? Isn't that our second Matsumoto of today?

[00:06:24]Kaoru Hasuike and Yukiko Okudo from Niigata Prefecture disappeared after saying they were only stepping out for a moment, but would be back home shortly.

[00:06:34]Other notable disappearances that year would include Hitomi and Miyoshi Soga, the mother and daughter from Niigata Prefecture, as well as Yaeko Taguchi from Tokyo, who went missing after dropping her children off at daycare.

[00:06:46]Adding to the mystery, rumors naturally began to circulate with whispers of attempted kidnappings and of North Korean agents conducting state-sponsored abductions of Japanese citizens. Why?

[00:06:56]They just seem to be abducting random citizens of different ages and different life What is happening? In response, the Japanese government largely disregarded these as conspiracy theories, a stance which, in the absence of any evidence at the time, I would have to agree with. That is until I read about the case of Yutaka Kume, a 52-year-old security guard who went missing on September the 19th, 1977, 2 months before Megumi was taken. Shortly after Kume's disappearance, a Korean man, referred to as Lee, was arrested in Ishikawa Prefecture for illegal residency and suspected smuggling.

[00:07:31]During the course of their interrogation, Lee revealed to investigators that he had been complicit in the abduction of Kume, who had been lured to the city of Noto under the guise of organizing a trade deal. Lee claimed that he was under orders to find and abduct unmarried Japanese men in their 50s for the purpose of identity theft, and Kume was allegedly then whisked away on a rubber boat to be transported back to North Korea.

[00:07:54]Do they understand how stealing identity works? You don't need to steal the person. You just need to steal their identity. While this might seem like the smoking gun that Japanese investigators needed to more carefully scrutinize the subsequent disappearances, Lee was released with all charges against him being dropped for lack of evidence.

[00:08:10]Despite all these incidents being investigated locally, it would take another 20 years to discover that the lives of these individuals were inextricably linked. And Megumi would become the face of a movement that would continue to grow in momentum with dozens of families doing all they can to ensure the safe return of their stolen family members. I do like it when it's like, I mean, obviously this is terrible and everything, but when it's a conspiracy theory, uh people are like, oh my god, it was it was actually the North Koreans. They were kidnapping our people randomly.

[00:08:37]That's intense.

[00:08:39]The abduction of Megumi Yokota.

[00:08:45]Megumi was born on October the 5th, 1964 in Nagoya to parents Sakie and Shigeru Yokota and her two younger brothers, twins named Tatsuya and Takuya. Her father, Shigeru, worked at the Bank of Japan, a job that would see his family relocate every few years. While moving to a new region can be difficult for anyone, Megumi adapted quite well, and according to Takuya, quote, "All of us loved talking to her when we would eat together. She was cheerful, dependable, and sociable, popular with friends. If I were to compare her to a flower, she'd be a sunflower." That's lovely. From all accounts, Megumi was very bright in her youth, and the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs would describe her as a ray of sun to her family. She enjoyed singing, [music] drawing, and practicing classical ballet and calligraphy. Aside from her fear of water, she was otherwise very outgoing and a typical teenager. After the family returned to Niigata City in 1976, there was a notable difference in Megumi's demeanor.

[00:09:37]The normally vibrant preteen with a bubbly personality had become quieter and more subdued, but it's unclear whether Megumi was struggling with her mental health or was experiencing a shift in personality as she grew into the next stage of her life as a teenager. I mean, yeah, you're 13 years old, like, things are going to change. In a memoir, North Korea Kidnapped My Daughter, Sakie recounts feeling empathy for Megumi as she found Niigata City to be forlorn and lonely compared to the bustling streets of Hiroshima, which led her to suspect that Megumi may have felt the same way.

[00:10:08]I'm inclined to trust Sakie's observations as she and Shigeru would go on to prove themselves not just to be responsible parents, but exceptional people fueled by parental love and their dedication drive and inability or unwillingness to give up on finding their daughter. Yeah, good for you. So, when Megumi did not make it home on that fateful November Sakie did everything by the book. She first went to the school, but after seeing it was closed, she went door to door and reached out to her friends and the local doctor to find out if anyone had seen her daughter. After that proved unfruitful, she wasted no time in calling Shigeru and the police, both of whom immediately showed up at the Yokota residence to begin searching.

[00:10:43]Excellence.

[00:10:45]Very competent and prompt and this is all working out great so far. Much of the credit of the prefecture police, they handled the report of Megumi's disappearance with an urgency and seriousness that is far too often lacking in other cases covered on the Casual Criminalist when a teenager goes missing. Yeah, exactly. That's why I said it because so often it's like cuz you'll be like, "Yeah, of course the police would be right on this shit." And then we've seen so many episodes where it's like, "Ah, you just wait until morning. It's probably fine."

[00:11:10]Christ. The search that commenced would see an investment of 3,000 staff days over the course of the next year and the prefectural police would utilize the support of helicopters, patrol boats, and sniffer dogs.

[00:11:23]Taking every possible scenario into consideration, Megumi's parents and the police desperately look for any convincing piece of evidence to suggest how the investigation should proceed, whether it be that she ran away, was kidnapped, had an accident, or had chosen to extinguish her own flame of existence. I mean, on the 800-m walk home at 13 years old, that feels very unlikely. How prevalent can Oh, I don't like to think about that, but good god, how prevalent could suicide be in someone who's 13 years old? That's very young.

[00:11:56]I That doesn't seem like a realistic I don't know, Jesus. Despite the extensive efforts to locate Megumi, the only clue as to what happened to her was a scent that had been picked up by one of the dogs. The trail led the dog down the 8-minute walk from the school only to suddenly stop abruptly at the intersection down the street from the family home. Initially, Shigeru speculated that perhaps after a devastating accident such as a hit-and-run, a driver had taken an injured or deceased Megumi out of panic or fear of getting into trouble, but since they were unable to observe any visible tire marks, broken glass, or other markings to suggest an accident occurred, the police did not pursue this theory.

[00:12:30]You got 3,000 staff days, can't you just have one dude be like, "You just go spend one day on this, Mike."

[00:12:36]Or whatever the Japanese equivalent of Mike is. Taking into consideration Megumi's less upbeat mood, Sakie wondered if she'd chosen to run away.

[00:12:43]Depending on your perception of Megumi based on how she'd been described so far combined with personal experience, it might seem either open-minded that Sakie would consider this possibility or strange given that by all accounts, they have a very close-knit family. However, I'm of the opinion that it was desperation. Yeah, I agree. I think you'd you'd want to suggest everything possible so that the police can do the best job possible. You know, I think you'd be a I think it's extremely likely, but obviously, you could pursue the idea that she ran away and we were just like, I think I know her, but you'd be like, "Maybe there's something I don't know." Be realistic. I think this is very logical and even-keeled. You see, Japan has a phenomenon where people go missing voluntarily. While taboo to talk about it openly, it became recognized and given the name "Johatsu" or "evaporating people" in the 1960s.

[00:13:29]Yeah, is this where people just disappear to get out of their social obligations? I vaguely remember learning something about this. Various how-to guides on how to quietly disappear have made their way into circulation. I have mentioned or talked about this in a video at some point cuz I know this.

[00:13:42]It's quite a profitable enterprise for the entrepreneurial-minded individual with night escape agencies offering services that will essentially erase any trace you ever existed. For the budget fee of anywhere between 300 and 1,700 euros, they will provide you with a makeshift identity and relocation. Wait, I mean, for 1,700 euros, how good's that identity going to be? It sounds [snorts] like they just printed you out like a fake driver's license on their inkjet printer.

[00:14:06]1,700 bucks to disappear, [snorts] please. With that in mind, it may not have been completely outlandish to consider Megumi may have chosen to vanish. However, without any leads for the investigation to go on, her disappearance was considered likely to be a gang-related abduction, which all things considered, was not too far from the truth. Yeah, it's the nation-state gangs. What we now know is that while the search was ongoing, Megumi was trapped in the pitch black of a ship's hold. Wait, we do know this for sure? Oh my.

[00:14:36]Oh my, okay. Terrified and surrounded by turbulent water, she clawed with such desperation at the walls and the door of her cold cage that it left her hands bloodied and nearly all her fingernails gone. And all the while, she cried out for her mother. Whether she knew she had been taken by foreign agents or not, she would soon find out once she arrived in North Korea after enduring a torturous 40-hour journey across the Sea of Japan.

[00:14:59]Yeah, I told you it was pretty far. To say that Megumi's abduction left a fracture in the Yokota family would be a massive understatement. It caused a rupture of epic proportions that continues to affect the family to this day. Without yet knowing the details of what happened, the Yokotas ceased going on family holidays and would make sure that someone was always at home. They left the lights on every night in case Megumi had chosen to run away to signal that she was always welcome and never forgotten. In the evening, Sakie would go to different areas city in hopes that she would run into her daughter on the street. Shigeru would leave early from work and search the nearby beach and streets hanging on to hope that he might find a clue as to where Megumi had gone.

[00:15:35]The Bank of Japan even postponed Shigeru's next relocation to Tokyo for a couple of years giving the family more time to search for their daughter. But despite their resilient facade, Megumi's parents began to feel like hollow shells of their former selves. Shigeru would cry in the bathtub every night hidden away where he believed his family would not be able to hear him.

[00:15:53]Likewise, Sakie would sob in moments of quiet when she found herself alone.

[00:15:58]The emptiness of their home becoming a suffocating reminder of their shattered family.

[00:16:03]Both of them would remain forever haunted by the disappearance of Megumi.

[00:16:08]The bombing of Korean Airlines Flight 858.

[00:16:14]All right, very much wondering how this is related. On November the 29th, 1987, families waited impatiently for Korean Air Flight 858 to arrive over Gimpo International Airport in Seoul.

[00:16:25]>> [music] >> It was a regularly scheduled route flying from Baghdad to Seoul with layovers in Abu Dhabi and Bangkok. Do planes have to stop so much in the past?

[00:16:32]Double layover, that sucks.

[00:16:34]While the aircraft's arrival was noted as being delayed before any indication that something had gone wrong was made public, the government of South Korea was alarmed and for good reason. They immediately suspected that the plane had been subjected to a terrorist attack and had already reached out to the United States for support from their intelligence community. Oof, where it's like, [snorts] "Yeah, no, the plane's delayed and we don't know exactly where it is."

[00:16:59]It didn't take long before pieces of wreckage from Flight 858 were recovered in the Andaman Sea off the coast of Bangkok confirming that the plane had been bombed killing all 115 souls on board.

[00:17:09]During the investigation, South Korean intelligence flagged two passengers who had been on board as suspicious and contacted the Japanese government to verify their passport details. The two suspects had departed from Baghdad, but disembarked in Abu Dhabi without continuing on the next leg of their journey and instead had headed to Bahrain.

[00:17:27]They had luggage Is it Is this why they take luggage out these days?

[00:17:32]Like, if someone doesn't make the plane and their luggage is on board, then the people have to go on board and get the luggage off the plane so so you can't so planes don't fly with unattended luggage, right? It's very annoying. You'll be sitting on the tarmac and they'll be like, "Oh, yeah, someone hasn't made the plane. We don't know where they are, so we've got to take their luggage off."

[00:17:52]Okay.

[00:17:53]He's taking a really long sh departures.

[00:17:55]Incidentally, the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs found that this information mostly matched real people with the exception of one of the passport numbers. As a result, they could confidently conclude that not only were the passports forged, but more importantly, the identities they were traveling with also were forged. Based on their findings, they notified immigration in Bahrain to keep a lookout. I guess this was the '80s, so you could go through passport control with a passport that just has the wrong number. I feel like today they'd be like, "Uh-uh.

[00:18:22]This ain't real, brother." Just days later on the 1st of December 1987, Kim Hyon Hui and Kim Sung Il, who we'll refer to you by their spy aliases, Mayumi and Shinichi, uh were traveling under the guise of being daughter and father and tried to catch a flight to Rome from Manama. Using passports that matched the information provided by the Japanese Embassy, they were detained by Bahraini immigration to await the arrival of a special envoy from South Korea. Guys, I know it's the '80s, but a plane that you were supposed to be on blew up. You sh and you im you got off the flight ahead of time.

[00:18:57]You should know your passport's definitely not good anymore. At the time, a statement by Japanese Ambassador to Takao Natsume stated that the couple could speak Japanese, but he was unsure whether or not they were from Japan.

[00:19:07]Furthermore, they declined to comment on whether or not they had any involvement in the bombing of Flight KAL 858.

[00:19:13]Did you bomb the plane? No comment.

[00:19:14]Maybe I did. Maybe I didn't.

[00:19:17]They'll be like, No.

[00:19:19]Seated in a holding room of the airport under the watchful eye of both Bahraini immigration and representatives from the Japanese Embassy, the duo pulled out a pack of cigarettes, but rather than having a smoke to take the edge off, the two subsequently bit into the filter tips ingesting cyanide capsules that they'd hidden inside. The effects were instantaneous and before officials could react, the two suspects had fallen to the floor unconscious, bodies rigid, but still alive prompting immediate transport to the hospital. While Shinichi uh was pronounced deceased that day, Mayumi unexpectedly survived and once she regained consciousness, she was extradited to Seoul. Mayumi's like, "Weak ass cyanide?" Over the course of several months, Mayumi would be interrogated by both South Korean authorities and US officials. The information she provided did more than just clarify who had orchestrated the targeting of Korean Air Lines Flight 858 why. It forced the Japanese government to take the rumors stemming back from the '70s surrounding the abduction of Japanese citizens seriously rather than dismissing them as conspiracy theories.

[00:20:19]On December the 23rd, Mayumi would confess that she was a secret agent working for the North Korean government.

[00:20:24]South Korea had won the bid to host the 1988 Olympics after which time North Korea was adamant they should be able to host or at the very least co-host the event. Proposition that likely was never given any serious consideration much to the dismay of the North Korean government. Oh, no, boohoo. Because of this, orders were given to plant a bomb on the flight headed to Seoul.

[00:20:45]>> [snorts] >> So, I can't have nice things. According to Mayumi's testimony, it was to discourage countries from wanting to participate in the Olympics due to it appearing unsafe as well as destabilize the whole South Korean puppet regime.

[00:20:58]Right. Recalling the earlier comments from Takao Natsume, Mayumi explained that both she and Shinichi spoke Japanese. In order to successfully execute missions, North Korean agents had to undergo rigorous training including successfully learning the language, behaviors, and cultural norms for citizens of other countries. For Mayumi posing as a Japanese citizen, she claimed to have been trained by none other than Yaeko Taguchi, the woman from Tokyo who went missing after dropping her children off at daycare. Oh my god, is that why they're capturing Japanese people? So, they can teach people about Japan to make them spies. Oh, I understand.

[00:21:32]Then on to and just straight-up identity theft, they are capturing people and then training them up in how to live lives like Japanese people. That's [ __ ] wild. Holy [ __ ] I was watching that TV show The Americans, you know, where the the Soviets had people to pretend to be American. Do you think they captured Americans to teach them people how to be American cuz they were really good at being American.

[00:21:53]Additionally, she said that she not only knew of Megumi, but that she was very much alive and living in Pyongyang. It would take another 10 years for this information to reach Sakie and Shigeru Yokota and the families of other abducted Japanese citizens. Oh, no, why?

[00:22:07]Starting a movement.

[00:22:13]On an evening in January 1997 after returning to their Tokyo home, Sakie was surprised to find Shigeru sitting alone in the dark. Concerned, she asked him what the matter was and Shigeru, with an uncharacteristic intensity, whispered, "Today I got a call from the secretary to a former lawmaker of the Japanese Communist Party that Megumi was actually abducted to North Korea [music] in 1977 and is still alive."

[00:22:36]So, this is 20 years later, so she would be 33 at this point. By this time, the Japanese government was well aware that there was merit to the claims that there was an abduction problem. Yet, pro-Pyongyang parties within the Japanese government were reluctant or simply refused to acknowledge the issue.

[00:22:51]Within the media, there wasn't much interest in the kidnappings that had started 20 years prior and the topic did not really gain any traction with the general public. It genuinely surprises me. I mean, of course it's like an abduction from 20 years ago, but then you're like, "Yeah, yeah, might have been North Korea." But that feels like quite the turn of events. The Yokotas would change that. Now, it's important to note that Japan has incredibly strict privacy laws. Therefore, there are no publicly available missing persons lists. [music] However, without Japanese lawmakers demonstrating a willingness to try and advocate for the return of the abductees, [music] the only option would be to sway the court of public opinion.

[00:23:23]To do so, they would need to give the victims an identity and Shigeru was all for letting the world know that their daughter had been stolen. But after undertaking a family vote, Shigeru found himself outnumbered three to one. The twins and Sakie worried that making Megumi's identity public would endanger her life. What if North Korea executes her to hide any evidence that they took her? But Shigeru knew that it was a risk he had to take and the family eventually relented.

[00:23:47]They would all be in this together. It's like, "Yeah, we'll have a vote." Yeah, mate, we voted three to one. And then he's like, "I'm just going to badger you guys until you vote with me."

[00:23:55]>> [snorts] >> Doesn't that What What did Did they have a vote? Swallowing his anguish, he pushed his fears aside and followed through with his goal giving a press conference where he would share Megumi's identity.

[00:24:04]>> [music] >> By doing so, he gave a face to one of the victims of North Korea's abduction scheme. He forced the public and government officials to look at the young, beautiful girl who had been taken without reason 20 years earlier and explain why they did not want to take action, why they didn't want her to be returned to her family. On the 3rd of February, 1997, Megumi's face was on the front page of the Sankei Shimbun with the headline, "Missing little girl was abducted by North Korea."

[00:24:30]Yeah, that feels like something that should be on the front page. Like I said, it feels like it's quite the news story. And by the next morning, the story had spread and was reported on by all the major newspapers of Japan. Not only had Megumi's story gathered national attention, but her case was also raised in the National Diet or Parliament. The Yokotas, for their part, were just getting started. They soon found out that they were far from the only ones impacted. Families from all over Japan were still suffering the heartbreak of not knowing what had happened to their missing children, parents, and friends and they offered the Yokotas their support. Why would they want to kidnap a girl? Like, for the spy training. That doesn't seem so useful unless they're spy training children, which I mean, maybe. The following month, Shigeru and Sakie founded the Association of Families of Victims Kidnapped by North Korea or AFV KN for short. They were joined by eight other families forming a support group with one goal, forcing the Japanese government's hand in securing the return of the abductees. Initially, the response to the cause was not wholly sympathetic. Despite the shocking nature of Megumi's story, many news outlets had framed the incident as an alleged abduction resulting in many people choosing to ignore the ongoing efforts.

[00:25:36]I mean, they don't have proof, so it kind of is alleged, right? In 1998, these entities formed a group called the National Association for the Rescue of Japanese Kidnapped [music] by North Korea or NARKN and the AFV KN would continue to operate independently as well. I've heard people claim that signing petitions is essentially a lost cause, one that perhaps makes you feel good about showing support without the need to actually take action or invest any effort. But the campaign efforts of NARKN and AFV KN were relentless. They organized marches, created petitions, and held assemblies. They continued to press the issue not only in Japan, but internationally even meeting with then President George W. Bush in 2001.

[00:26:16]Eventually in 2002, their movement would reach Kim Jong-il himself.

[00:26:20]>> [snorts] >> He's like, "What Japanese people? Take them outside and shoot them."

[00:26:24]No, no Japanese people here.

[00:26:27]Negotiations with North Korea.

[00:26:33]The fact that Kim Jong-il had caught wind of the Japanese campaigns proved beneficial to both countries. Basically, North Korea was going through some hard times and they would be more than happy to provide Japan with the information they needed in return for some much-needed resources. I asked Japan, famously resource-rich.

[00:26:50]In 1995, the country experienced very severe floods due to the policies of Kim Il-sung who conveniently died in 1994 and did not live to see any backlash.

[00:26:59]The country had an extremely limited agricultural output. So, when Kim Jong-il took the reins, he was suddenly tasked with leading a country that was not only in economic freefall, but also experiencing famine. He could bear He wasn't, though, that chubby bastard.

[00:27:13]Though the famine was technically considered to be over by 1998, North Korea had the desire to normalize its relations with Japan. Realistically, they wanted aid by means of food and funding as well as an apology from Japan for colonialism. And on that one, fair play. The Japanese government wanted information on the abductees and refused to entertain any negotiations without North Korea's cooperation on the matter.

[00:27:35]And in September 2002, Junichiro Koizumi, then Prime Minister of Japan, was invited to Pyongyang for discussions to take place. With just 30 minutes to go before the meeting started, in an unprecedented move, Kim Jong-il both acknowledged and apologized for the abduction of Japanese citizens by North Korea. But in true North Korean fashion, Kim Jong-il would only acknowledge the abduction of 13 victims in total claiming only five were still alive.

[00:28:00]And then they phone him again. Now, it is four.

[00:28:02]According to reports, some of the causes of death that North Korea provided were drowning, choking on the fumes of a coal heater, a heart attack suffered by a 27-year-old woman, as well as two car accidents in a country where about 2% of the population own a personal vehicle.

[00:28:17]Of course, all the flooding in the '90s had washed the bodies away, so no remains could be provided at least for now. Instead, they gave what was considered the next best thing, a form where the label reading "Registry [music] of patients entering and leaving the hospital" had been furiously crossed out with the word "death" written in next to it. This was supposedly the hospital's death registry certificate and according to Kim Jong-il, it was all the proof that Japan needed.

[00:28:43]Right.

[00:28:44]And according to this list, Megumi Yokota had passed away on March the 13th, 1993.

[00:28:50]>> [music] >> Speaking about her case specifically, Kim Jong-il claims that Megumi's abduction had been a complete accident and that they had never intended to take someone so young. He expressed that Megumi's two kidnappers had been tried and found guilty for their conduct in 1998 with one being executed and the other dying during their 15-year prison sentence. Quote, "I would like to take this opportunity to apologize straightforwardly for the regrettable conduct of those people. I will not allow it to happen again." Now, if you've been following along so far, the parents received a phone call from a secretary to a government official advising Megumi was still alive in 1997 and now North Korea was claiming that she had died in 1993.

[00:29:27]But as a gesture of good faith, North Korea would allow for the five Japanese citizens they said were still alive to return to Japan.

[00:29:33]However, since they were now considered to be citizens of North Korea, they would only be allowed to return home for a period of 10 days after which they'd be expected to go back to North Korea.

[00:29:42]I'd be like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, definitely going back to North Korea.

[00:29:45]It's where it's happening. I feel so North Korean right now. Get off the plane. I want asylum.

[00:29:51]Asylum.

[00:29:54]I declare asylum. Truth be told, Japan was not completely satisfied and was understandably suspicious of what Kim Jong-il had told them. Regardless, they went forward with signing the Pyongyang Declaration. This was an agreement where both sides were to comply with international laws surrounding missile tests, North Korea returning five of the abductees, and Japan providing economic aid when diplomatic ties were strengthened. It also included the issuing of apologies, one from Japan for atrocities committed during their colonial rule, and from North Korea for the abductions with the promise to never do it again. One month later, in October of 2002, five of the Japanese nationals that had been taken from their homelands more than 20 years ago would step off a plane wearing little North Korean flags on their lapels. They were Hitomi Soga, Yasushi and Fukie Kimura, previously Hamamoto, and Kaoru and Yukiko Hasuike, previously Okudo. Yes, two of the couples that were abducted actually ended up getting married while in North Korea and were returned together.

[00:30:52]It's quite nice, isn't it?

[00:30:54]It's quite nice.

[00:30:56]>> [snorts] >> However, after the five abductees got home, they seemingly decided they actually quite enjoyed being back in Japan, so the government simply didn't return them. Surprise!

[00:31:05]They were Japanese citizens after all.

[00:31:07]After a while, they began to talk and they would say that not only were there much more than 13 abductees, but they also said Megumi was still alive. One of them even claimed to have lived next door to her in June of 1994 for several months. At this point, the family was more frustrated and angry than they were devastated. They simply couldn't believe that Megumi could be dead without definitive evidence, so they continued to campaign [music] to apply pressure to the government.

[00:31:31]Now, if you're starting to feel that North Korea may have been less than completely forthcoming with the information they had chosen to share in 2002, well, you're not alone. Japan felt the same way, and any talks or agreements between the two countries had since reached a standstill. But, North Korea had allowed five of the abductees to come home and had not really retaliated when they refused to come back. Japan agreed to continue negotiations in May of 2004. During the second round of talks, Prime Minister Koizumi made his demands clear. He wanted the children of the couples who had married in North Korea, as well as one of the spouses of the five abductees to be returned to Japan to reunite with their families. Furthermore, Japan would not accept anything less than a comprehensive report that accounted for each and every Japanese citizen who had been taken. North Korea did compromise in their own way. The children of the couples and the spouse did get sent back to Japan, and it turns out the bodies didn't get washed away in the 1995 floods after all. Unexpectedly, they had been able to locate and return the cremated remains of Megumi and Kaoru Matsuki, another abductee. This time, they said that Megumi had actually died in April of 1994 having hanged herself in a pine forest while being treated for depression at a psychiatric hospital.

[00:32:38]It's not clear to me which part the Japanese government found to be most unbelievable in this situation. Perhaps it was that Megumi's supposed time of death had [music] been adjusted over 1 year later, or the cremated remains had materialized for bodies that had allegedly been washed away. Maybe [snorts] it was the idea that the mental health concerns for abductees were being adequately addressed. Regardless of the basis for their suspicions, the Japanese government received the remains and submitted them for DNA testing. When bodies are cremated, there may be fragments of bone in the ashes, and the testing is conducted on that rather than the ashes themselves. From both the remains, they were able to recover several pieces of bone, including a segment of jaw. In Japan, there's a tradition where mothers will keep umbilical cord of their children once it's dried and fallen off.

[00:33:21]It's kind of a gross tradition, guys.

[00:33:23]It's in a special wooden box called a Kotobuki Bako. Using Megumi's umbilical cord, they were able to determine her remains included DNA from two different individuals, neither of which were a match. They would get similar results for all other remains tested. Japan would contest the validity of the remains and information, to which North Korea maintained a firm stance that the matter had been fully resolved by their previous admission of culpability and the return of the five living Japanese citizens.

[00:33:51]>> [snorts] >> It's like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, okay, fine. We're satisfied with that."

[00:33:55]Said no parents ever. The outcome would create a negative shift in any potential for a positive relationship between the two countries for the foreseeable future. No [ __ ] that's what happens when you kidnap another country's children at random. It would be further exacerbated by North Korea's first nuclear test in 2006, after which time Japan implemented a full ban on entry for any of their boats, as well as adopting UN Security Council sanctions.

[00:34:19]In May 2014, North Korea had a change of heart and negotiations with Japan would be held again, this time at a summit in Stockholm. In exchange for sanctions being lifted, they would establish a special investigative committee to look into any and all Japanese citizens in North Korea. It was a short-lived promise with a fourth nuclear test being conducted in January 2016. After the world retaliated, North Korea reacted by announcing it would completely cease all investigations related to abductions.

[00:34:45]And to date, there have not been any further discussions or progress made on ensuring the victims of North Korean abduction get home. That's pretty [ __ ] sad.

[00:34:54]More questions than answers.

[00:35:00]After 14 years of failed back and forth between the two countries with a tense history, you'd think that [snorts] that is the end for this tragic tale of shared mystery, fear, and doubt. But, even though Kim Jong-il considers the matter resolved, the families of the victims definitely do not. In March of 2014, two months before the Stockholm negotiations, Sakie and Shigeru would receive another unexpected call. North Korean and Japanese foreign officials had successfully arranged a very special meeting for Megumi's parents in Mongolia. In Ulaanbaatar, Sakie and Shigeru would spend a weekend meeting their granddaughter, 26-year-old Kim Young-gyong, their 10-month-old great-granddaughter, and their son-in-law. To Megumi's parents, then 78 and 81 respectively, it was as close to a dream as they could hope for. According to Sakie, they didn't ask about the fate of their daughter, nor did they ask about anything that was vaguely related to politics or their life in North Korea.

[00:35:56]She was under no illusion that North Korea had told them the truth regarding what had happened to Megumi, and Sakie understood that she could never know how much truth would have been in the answers she received. What matters is that they were able to reunite with a piece of Megumi, whether or not Megumi was still alive or not. For so long, they had desired to make the family whole once again, and in the process, it had grown.

[00:36:18]Not only that, Sakie left the meeting still holding the belief that Megumi was still very much alive. For Sakie and Shigeru Yokota, they continued to campaign visiting every prefecture of Japan and holding more than 1,400 talks on the subject to keep the victims of abductions, an issue that doesn't get forgotten. To this day, Sakie has an unwavering optimism and determination that one day all the Japanese citizens being held in Japan will be able to return home. Shigeru died on June the 5th, 2020 at the age of 87 with a picture of Megumi next to his hospital bed. He never stopped searching for his daughter, and the impact that he [music] made in being a voice for the families of victims of abduction would give him a notoriety with human rights organizations worldwide. For Sakie, she turned 90 on February the 4th of this year, but she continues on, in her own words, "As I get older, I lose more and more of my physical stamina. It's hard to press on as tenaciously as before. I just hope I can live long enough to rescue our daughter." The Yokota family legacy, the AFN, is still very much active today. It is now headed by one of Megumi's younger brothers, Takuya. As of 2022, the organization's petition to bring the abductees home has surpassed 16 million signatures. So, to return to the original question, what happened to Megumi and where is she now? Well, she was taken to North Korea against her will, and until the day that actual evidence is provided to prove that she is deceased, I believe that she's still out there. And so long as all the families hang on to hope that one day all the living victims of abduction will be returned, well, so do I.

[00:37:46]Yeah, well said. God, 60 years of abduction. It's crazy.

[00:37:52]Just remember the appendices.

[00:37:58]The number of Japanese citizens that have verified to have been taken by North Korea during the '70s and '80s stands at 17. However, there are 800-plus people who went missing during that time period for which abduction cannot be ruled out. Human rights organizations, the AFN, and the Japanese government continue to investigate. I mentioned in passing that in 2004, North Korea released the spouse of one of the Japanese abductees that was returned in 2002 so they could reunite in Japan.

[00:38:23]Interestingly, the spouse was an American who had defected to North Korea during the Korean War, named Charles Robert Jenkins. He apparently got drunk one night and just wandered across the DMZ hoping to get asylum from the Soviet Embassy. They turned him down, and instead he was held prisoner for 39 years. After arriving in Japan, he spent 25 days in a US military prison, eventually dying in Japan in 2017. It's a hell of a story.

[00:38:47]It's worth 39 years cuz he got drunk and wandered across the border.

[00:38:51]Oh god. Hasuike Kaoru, one of the five that was returned in 2002, has recently begun talking more openly about his experiences in North Korea.

[00:39:01]He had refrained from doing so for fear that it could have negative consequences to those still alive there. He wrote a book at the end of 2025 called Nihonjin Rashi, or Abductions of Japanese Citizens. It is said in the book where he refutes the claims of the eight Japanese abductees' deaths that was provided in 2002, including Megumi, based on his first-hand experiences.

[00:39:22]Once a English version is easily available, I reckon it would be an interesting read. And lastly, there is speculation that North Korea had orchestrated the meeting of Megumi's parents and her granddaughter in Mongolia to use as a bargaining tool.

[00:39:34]I'm inclined to believe that they did legitimately meet their extended family for a number of reasons. First, the meeting took place on neutral ground in Mongolia, and secondly, it is never made clear who arranged the meeting. From what I can tell, Kim Jong-il never spoke about it during the 2014 meeting suggesting he didn't arrange it. As a final point, it occurred an entire 2 months before the Stockholm summit. If it was intended to be used as leverage, it would seem a bit premature to set up the meeting beforehand without knowing what Japan was willing to offer. Since I find the circumstances surrounding the meeting to be very curious, I'd love to hear what others think. Uh probably a coincidence I I I would say, but maybe not.

[00:40:10]That's the end of today's uh reasonably short episode. Thank you so much for being here.