Malaysia and 700 000 missing japanese condoms

More than 700,000 ultrathin Japanese condoms have gone missing on its way from Malaysia to Japan.

Malaysian police are working hard to investigating the disappearance of the rubbers.


The condoms are worth some $1.5 million if sold at Japanese retail prices; they are, the AFP dutifully reports, 14 percent thinner than "conventional" condoms (if you believe its maker).

Sagami Rubber Industries is Japan's first condom maker, and according to them the shipment was loaded into a container at its factory in northern Malaysia, but that it was empty with the locks replaced when it arrived in Tokyo.

"We take the matter of the missing condoms very seriously... we are investigating the matter," a Malaysian police spokesman told AFP.

Sato Koji, manager of the Sagami rubber factory in Malaysia's Perak state, said they had lodged a police report over the loss of the shipment.

"We are unhappy over the incident. This is the first time such a thing has happened since our Malaysian production started in 1997," he told AFP.

Freight forwarders say goods being shipped out of Malaysia go missing routinely and that many cases are inside jobs.