Crime Ring Suspect Served Fresh Warrant over Robbery in Japan

Jiji Press

12:30 JST, July 21, 2023

TOKYO, July 20 (Jiji Press) — Japanese police served a fresh arrest warrant Thursday on a suspected senior member of a crime ring based in the Philippines over a robbery case in Chiba Prefecture, near Tokyo, in January.

The 39-year-old suspect, Kiyoto Imamura, allegedly gave an order, using the pseudonym “Mitsuhashi,” to rob a used goods shop in the city of Oamishirasato, Tokyo’s Metropolitan Police Department said.

Imamura is suspected of committing robbery resulting in injury in the case, the police said.

The case is part of a spate of robberies across Japan allegedly committed by the group whose ringleaders while in the Philippines are believed to have scouted for perpetrators through social media posts.

Imamura was arrested in June on suspicion of giving an order to rob a watch store in the western Japan city of Kyoto in May last year. He is believed to have used the pseudonym “Luffy” in the Kyoto case.

The police believe that Imamura, while being detained in an immigration facility in the Philippines, gave instructions over the robbery cases under several pseudonyms, including a robbery and murder case in Komae, a Tokyo suburb, in January.

Imamura was detained in the Philippines by local authorities in December 2019. He and three others were extradited to Japan in February this year.