Tokyo: Tokyo police are set to arrest on Tuesday 19 Japanese nationals suspected of taking part in a Cambodia-based phone scam after transporting them from the country.

The Metropolitan Police Department will serve arrest warrants for the 19 men, aged between 25 and 55, on a chartered flight scheduled to arrive at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport on Tuesday night. About 50 MPD investigators dispatched to Cambodia will accompany them.

The MPD believes that the suspects include one affiliated to an organized crime group who played a central role in the fraud case.

According to investigative sources, the suspects are currently held at a police facility in Phnom Penh on suspicion of illegally staying in the Southeast Asian country. They have been ordered to leave the country.

Local authorities arrested the Japanese suspects at a hotel in the southern province of Sihanoukville in late January after receiving a report from the Japanese Embassy in Cambodia.

In their hotel rooms, a large number of mobile phones, a manual for conducting fraud and documents with the names of victims were found.

The MPD obtained arrest warrants for the suspects on Thursday after examining evidence handed over by Cambodian authorities.

According to the warrants, the 19 Japanese are suspected of defrauding a Tokyo woman in her 60s out of about 250,000 yen in BitCash electronic money in January by falsely telling her in a phone call that she had unpaid fees for an online service.

Several similar cases have been confirmed, the sources said.

JIJI Press