A shipping company has denied that some of its employees stole a large amount of whale meat after their vessel returned from Antarctica.

Kyodo Senpaku Kaisha, Ltd., which is commissioned by the Fisheries Agency to carry out research whaling off Antarctica, made the claim as they compiled an interim report on an in-house investigation into the case. The company will further file a report to the agency soon.

According to the company based in Tokyo's Chuo-ku, a 51-year-old crewmember of the Nisshin Maru, a Japanese whaling research ship, sent home via a delivery service two boxes containing whale meat that he was given as a souvenir as well as additional chunks that three of his fellow crewmembers gave him when they left the ship.

Greenpeace Japan seized one of the boxes without consent from the parcel delivery service company and claimed that a crewmember of the Nisshin Maru stole 23.5 kilograms of whale meat.

The parcel delivery company has filed a criminal complaint over the theft of the box of whale meat.

Officials with Kyodo Senpaku said the company usually allows each crewmember to bring home about 10 kilograms of whale meat as a souvenir and to purchase up to 3.2 kilograms of whale meat when they leave the research whaling ship.