Manila to deport 4 fraud suspects to Japan as early as next week

MANILA--The Philippines as early as next week is expected to deport four Japanese men together to their home country, where they face fraud and other charges, investigative sources said Feb. 2.

The four--Yuki Watanabe, 38, Tomonobu Kojima, 45, Toshiya Fujita, 38, and Kiyoto Imamura, 38--are currently being held at an immigration detention center in Manila.

They have also been connected to a series of violent robberies committed around Japan, including one in western Tokyo in January that left an elderly woman dead.

The Japanese government had asked the Philippine government to repatriate the four suspects together.

Japanese police have obtained arrest warrants for the four for allegedly using bases in the Philippines to guide fraud scams perpetrated against mainly elderly people in Japan.

An official of the Philippine department of justice said on Feb. 1 that the four would all be deported at the same time after some legal matters are cleared up.

The four suspects have had criminal lawsuits filed against them.

According to the justice department, a court dismissed the lawsuit filed against one of the suspects.

But the lawsuits have continued against the other three, and hearings were scheduled to be held by Feb. 3, the official said.

The department has been asking that those lawsuits also be dismissed to speed up the deportation process.

“There are already requests for summary deportation, which we already have on process. So as soon as their cases are dismissed, they can already go,” the official said. “We have to invite the National Police Agency in Japan to come here to escort them back to Japan.”

The official also said the Philippine government is prepared to hand over to Japanese police the mobile phones confiscated from the four suspects.

(This article was written by correspondents Koji Nishimura and Tadao Onaga.)