Alleged Japan crime group leader arrested after Philippines deports him

TOKYO — A man believed to be a leader of a Japanese crime syndicate based in the Philippines was deported from the country and arrested Tuesday during his flight back to Japan on suspicion of theft in Tokyo in collusion with others, investigative sources said.

Tomohiro Koyama, 50, seen as a chief of the "JP Dragon" gangster syndicate, is also suspected of being linked to another group that committed a series of burglaries in Japan, Japanese investigators said.

Koyama was arrested for allegedly conspiring to gain access to the cash card of a Tokyo woman in her 50s and withdrawing around 700,000 yen from her bank account in 2019, they said.

Koyama was apprehended by Philippine police in January over a local fraud case.

According to the investigators, Koyama communicated with Kiyoto Imamura, a man suspected of using the pseudonym Luffy who allegedly organized the series of burglaries in Japan in 2022 and 2023. A lawyer of Imamura is suspected of helping him to communicate with Koyama via a smartphone when Imamura was detained at a police station in Tokyo.

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