Photo Courtesy of Bureau of Immigration
METRO

Japanese fugitive faces deportation

Anthony Ching

The Bureau of Immigration (BI) on Wednesday reported that a Japanese national wanted for fraud in Tokyo is about to be deported.

BI Commissioner Norman Tansingco identified the suspect as Hiroyuki Kawasaki, who was arrested recently at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport Terminal 1 when he attempted to board his flight via Philippine Airlines bound for Singapore.

As Kawasaki was being processed by an immigration officer, the officer discovered that his name had a positive hit on BI’s Interpol derogatory check system, which prompted Kawasaki to report to on-duty supervisors for further inspection and verification.

The on-duty BI supervisors then checked the passenger’s identity with the bureau’s Interpol unit, which confirmed that he and the individual named in the red alert are the same person.

After confirming, Kawasaki was immediately arrested and transferred to the BI Warden Facility in Camp Bagong Diwa, Taguig City, where he is being detained pending his deportation proceedings.

Tansingco claimed that since August last year, Kawasaki’s name was already placed on the BI watchlist after being charged with deportation for being an undesirable alien.

Kawasaki was allegedly charged with financial fraud and official document forgery, for which the Japanese government had requested his arrest and deportation.

According to information obtained from Interpol Manila, Tansingco revealed that Kawasaki and his colleagues are suspected of fabricating the electronic record of notarized deeds, which they used to defraud various Japanese firms of bank deposits.