Toen Trading Company and Sun Myung Moon John Gorenfeld has an interesting post today about Toen Trading Company, the company that brokered the infamous submarine deal between Russia and North Korea. The evidence for Toen’s affiliation with Sun Myung Moon consists of a US Defense Intelligence Agency field report's assertion to that effect and the participation of Toen’s President in one of Moon’s mass weddings in 1982 (the same one I participated in, apparently). This gentleman, a Korean who goes by the Japanese name Ariyoshi Shabata, has said that he is no longer a member of the church. However, it was always standard practise in the Japanese church for members to deny their connection to Moon while doing business.
The link with Moon is suspected but certainly not proven. A North Korean agent could easily have infiltrated Moon's church, or Toen could have been genuinely representing Moon, or this could simply have been a particularly unscrupulous scrap deal. There are numerous open questions that would have to be investigated by authorities in Japan and South Korea.