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Russia regrets Japan joined ‘anti-Russian spy mania’

The statement comes amid Japanese media reports that stolen secret commercial data were allegedly transferred to employees of Russia’s trade mission in Japan

TOKYO, January 25. /TASS/. Russia regrets that Japan has joined ‘anti-Russian speculations on the theme of spy mania,’ the Russian embassy in Japan said in a statement issued on Saturday.

The statement comes amid Japanese media reports that stolen secret commercial data were allegedly transferred to employees of Russia’s trade mission in Japan.

‘We regret that the Japanese side has joined anti-Russian speculations trendy in the West on the hackneyed theme of spy mania. The communication through the media, i.e. the notorious ‘megaphone diplomacy’ has more than once proven its futile and harmful nature," says the statement posted by the Russian embassy on its Facebook page.

As the Russian embassy stressed, this "runs counter to the policy line agreed by Moscow and Tokyo towards creating a positive atmosphere for developing bilateral cooperation and solving uneasy issues that are on the joint agenda."

The news agency Kyodo reported earlier on Saturday that the Japanese police had detained a local resident on suspicion of stealing secret commercial data that were presumably passed on to an employee of Russia’s trade mission in Japan. According to Kyodo’s data, the Japanese law-enforcement agencies sent an official inquiry to the Russian embassy in Japan, demanding that two employees of the Russian trade mission should come to the police for giving testimony. At the time of this publication, TASS was unable to confirm this information in the Russian embassy.

As the Japanese nationwide newspaper Sankei reported, one of the employees of the Russian trade mission in Japan summoned to the police is a current staffer with ‘diplomatic privileges’ while the other is a former employee who returned to Russia in 2017.

As Kyodo claimed, the detained 48-year-old Japanese illegally stole secret data from the Softbank large telecoms company where he had previously worked. The police believes that the data stolen from the company’s servers were subsequently transferred to the employee of the Russian trade mission in Japan. The detained Japanese admitted the wrongdoing and said during the questioning that "he transferred information and received cash for it," Kyodo claimed.

Japan’s telecoms giant Softbank issued a statement on Saturday, bringing apologies to its clients, shareholders and partners for the inconvenience caused.

Softbank stressed that the working documents stolen by the former employee had the low status of confidentiality and did not include the clients’ data or confidential information on the corporation’s business deals. TASS currently has no official comment from the Russian trade mission in Japan.