According to a recent article by The Telegraph, Japanese police have started publishing the photos and personal details of hundreds of citizens who have disappeared in the last sixty years and may have been abducted by North Korean agents. The information is being posted on the websites of prefectural police forces where the people were last seen, in hopes that they will be able to jog the memories of new witnesses.

In 2002, North Korea admitted that its agents had abducted 13 Japanese nationals in order to train spies to travel to Japan and assume local identities. However, the Japanese government insisted at the time that the number of those missing was 17. Human rights groups have claimed that the true figure could be many hundreds.