A Japanese man who is accused of helping to run a US$ 90 million investment scam will be imprisoned in Indonesia for four years, according to Indonesian authorities, who announced this on Tuesday ( Mar 12 ).
Yusuke Yamazaki, 43, was detained on January 31 while trying to travel through Malaysia in a small wooden ship, according to Nyoman Gede Surya Mataram, the minister’s statewide office. By the end of the day, he’s expected to become deported.
Additionally, the boat carried two crew members and four illegal Indonesian migrant workers, according to Mataram. Yamazaki was handed over to the Immigration Office in Batam on February 2 while the others were detained by police for a second analysis.
According to Mataram, Yamazaki first used a fake name and was taken into custody on fear of violating visas, but officers afterwards discovered him as an international criminal.
He worked for Nishiyama Farm, a Okayama-based business that ran land tours throughout Japan until it collapsed in February 2019 amid fraud allegations. Yamazaki left Japan for Hong Kong in February 2020, according to Japanese media reports, five people connected to Nishiyama Farm were detained in October 2021 for allegedly committing fraud amounting to about 13.3 billion yen ( US$ 90 million ).
Yamazaki was identified as a criminal by the Aichi Prefectural Police in a 2022 Interpol Blue Notice. Yamazaki is thought to have arrived in Indonesia by way of Türkiye in April of that year, according to Mataram.
At a press conference, Batam’s Immigration Office Chief, Samuel Toba, stated that the Chinese government would pursue additional legal proceedings after his move to Japan.
He added that the Japanese Police had dispatched prosecutors to Indonesia to help with Yamazaki’s imprisonment. Yamazaki will be flown to Jakarta at lunch before taking him on a nighttime Japan Airlines journey to Tokyo.
The Nagoya District Court ordered the plaintiffs to spend about 320 million yen ( roughly US$ 2.2 million ) in February 2022 in response to a lawsuit filed by 41 investors in Tokyo and four other regions seeking compensation from Yamazaki and others.