Crewmembers of a Japanese research whaling ship are accused by Greenpeace Japan of stealing a large amount of whale meat they caught off Antarctica.

The environment group is poised on Thursday to file accusations with law enforcers against 12 crewmembers of the Nisshin Maru, a Japanese whaling research ship, on suspicion of embezzlement in the conduct of business.

Greenpeace Japan said it has seized one of the packages that the crewmembers were sending home via a delivery service upon returning to Japan. Members of the group found 23.5 kilograms of whale meat in the package, which is worth 100,000 yen to 300,000 yen.

The 12 crewmembers belong to Kyodo Senpaku Kaisha, Ltd. based in Tokyo, which is commissioned by the Institute of Cetacean Research to carry out whaling research in waters off Antarctica. Greenpeace Japan said it was not sure what the crewmembers were going to do with the whale meat after sending it home.

The environment group said it has checked the shipping vouchers with company registry of the 12 crewmembers and confirmed that they sent out 47 boxes after returning to Japan.

Whales that are caught during research whaling are typically slaughtered aboard the ship, and the edible parts are sold on the market by Kyodo Senpaku. The sale of whale meat is used to cover part of the approximately 6 billion yen in annual expenses for whaling research.

"Taking home whale meat is an open secret among those concerned (with whaling research)", said Junichi Sato of Greenpeace Japan during a press conference in Tokyo on Thursday.

Sato defended the way his group snatched one of the parcel packages sent out by one of the crewmembers without obtaining permission from the delivery company. "It's not a problem as we did it to obtain evidence on the embezzlement."

Meanwhile, a representative of Kyodo Senpaku said, "There have been cases in which whale meat was given to crewmembers when they left the ship, but we cannot think of any illicit acts taking place such as selling whale meat on the black market."

The Fisheries Agency, which provides about 530 million yen as subsidies to the Institute of Cetacean Research, said it will look into the incident.

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