Two men have been arrested for smuggling five women from Myanmar into Japan and putting them to work in restaurants, Tokyo police announced Wednesday.
Arrested under the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Law were 69-year-old Hideo Kobune, president of NPO Wellness Network 21, and notary public Izumi Omori, 58. Their accomplice, a 27-year-old Myanmarese woman who worked as a broker, is already under arrest.
Police say that Kobune forged graduation certificates from a Japanese language school in Myanmar, as well as fake certificates of employment from his trading and software companies, and used them to obtain residence status certificates for five Myanmarese women. They each paid him around 1.5 million yen.
The pair are believed to have made around 160 million yen from smuggling since February 2006. Kobune is also believed to have used his NPO to lean on the Japanese consulate in Guangzhou, China, to expedite visa applications for Chinese immigrants, who formed the majority of the 135 people he illegally brought into Japan.
"I admit making them work in the restaurants, but Omori actually brought them into the country," Kobune told investigators. Omori has denied the charges, saying: "I don't see it as mass smuggling."
Set up in 2003, the NPO had links to a Tokyo-based criminal organization, according to police.
(Mainichi Japan) December 10, 2008
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