(Eagle News) — The Bureau of Immigration deported on Thursday, July 15, nine Japanese nationals wanted in their home country for telecommunications fraud.
In a statement, the bureau said Mishima Takumi, Tabata Ryota, Kawasaki Ryuto, Irabu Shioki, Onishi Shunsuke, Omata Kenta, Sato Takatoku, Hashizumi Ryushin, and Mitani Ren boarded a Japan Airlines flight to Narita which left the Ninoy Aquino International Airport shortly after 10 a.m.
The bureau said the deportees were among 34 Japanese nationals arrested by the bureau’s Fugitive Search Unit on November 13, 2019 inside a hotel in Makati City for voice phishing and telephone fraud activities.
They were expelled pursuant to a summary deportation order that the BI Board of Commissioners issued against them on December 5, 2019.
According to Immigration commissioner Jaime Morente, the deportees were escorted on their flight by Japanese policemen who earlier arrived in Manila to fetch them.
The bureau said according to Japanese authorities, those arrested were members of an organized crime syndicate that perpetrated a fraudulent scheme that victimized many unsuspecting Japanese citizens.
They allegedly defrauded their victims of roughly two billion yen, equivalent to about a billion pesos.
The scammer, the bureau said, is usually someone pretending to represent a trusted institution, company, or government agency.
