Malaysia detains three in theft of 700,000 top-rate condoms

Feb 18, 2011, 7:50 GMT

Kuala Lumpur - Malaysian police have detained three men believed to be involved in the theft of more than 700,000 condoms worth more than 4.5 million ringgit (1.5 million dollars), officials said Friday.

The suspects, who were detained Wednesday in the northern state of Perak, included two workers from the Sagami Rubber Industries Co, one of Japan's biggest condom makers, a police spokesman said.

The company said last month that 85,000 boxes of its ultra-thin, top-selling polyurethane condoms had gone missing en route from its Malaysia factory to Tokyo. Authorities had yet to find the missing goods.

'Having questioned the suspects, we have reason to believe that this was the job of an international syndicate,' Perak police chief Shukri Dahlan was quoted as saying by the Star newspaper.

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