 Police even considered the possibility that she had been kidnapped by North Korean intelligence operatives.She had been kidnapped by Nobuyuki Satō (born 1963), then a 28-year-old mentally disturbed unemployed Japanese man, who forced her into his car, and subsequently held her in the upstairs floor of his apartment in a residential area of Kashiwazaki, Niigata Prefecture for 9 years and two months.The house is only 200 meters from a "kōban" (police substation), and 55 kilometers from the location where she was kidnapped.