Japanese police arrest man who took Wagyu cattle sperm to China

Japanese police have arrested a man trying to take genetic material that could have been used to breed Japan’s renowned Wagyu cattle to China, causing consternation in an industry that guards its reputation jealously.

Police in Osaka searched the home of the man, who has not been named but is understood to be in his 60s, after he attempted to export the fertilised eggs and sperm of Wagyu cattle to China last year. The man took a ferry from Osaka to Shanghai in July with a metal container filled with liquid nitrogen and hundreds of samples of frozen eggs and sperm, the Yomiuri newspaper reported.