Whatever Happened to 700,000 Missing Japanese Condoms?

More than 700,000 ultra thin condoms produced by Japan’s first condom maker, Sagami Rubber Industries, are missing in action, so to speak.

The condoms were lost somewhere in transit between Malaysia and Japan. The shipment was loaded and locked into a container at the factory in northern Malaysia but empty (and with the locks replaced) when it arrived in Tokyo.

It is a mystery as to why anyone would bother to replace a lock on an empty container? Isn’t that like closing the barn door after the cows and horses have left for other pastures?

It is possible the answer lies in the fact that the container, although empty, needed to “appear to be locked” as it passed through various check points.

“We are unhappy over the incident. This is the first time such a thing has happened since our Malaysian production started in 1997,” said Sato Koji, manager of the Sagami Rubber Factory.

Sagami officials claim that the condoms are unlike others of their ilk as they are 14 percent thinner than conventional ones, and on the Japanese market retail for 1.5 million dollars.

The Malaysian police are doing their best to uncover the condom culprits and are quite aware that goods shipped out of Malaysia often go missing. In many instances, the thieves are those doing the packing and/or shipping.

“There are locks, seals and checklists provided by freight forwarders and shipping lines for every part of the journey from factory to destination, so it is very easy to find out where and when they were tampered with or changed,” said Walter Cullas, president of the Air Freight Forwarders Association of Malaysia.

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