By SHOKO MIFUNE/ Staff Writer
February 12, 2023 at 14:20 JST
Yuki Watanabe arrives at Haneda Airport in Tokyo on Feb. 9 after he was deported from the Philippines. (Hiroyuki Yamamoto)
Yuki Watanabe, a suspected leader in an international crime group, visited a casino in Manila several times when he was a prisoner at an immigration detention center in the city, local investigative sources said.
Watanabe, 38, who was on an international wanted list on suspicion of involvement in fraud and blackmail, was arrested by Philippine law enforcement officials in April 2021.
Reports have emerged that wealthy detainees at the immigration center in the Philippine capital could gain comforts and luxuries for their cells by bribing guards.
Watanabe is believed to have been one of the detainees who bought such “perks.”
He was also allowed to leave the detention facility multiple times to visit a casino about 10 kilometers away, the sources said.
He looked like he was being “escorted” by a detention facility worker, they said.
The casino is located inside a five-star hotel facing the Bay of Manila. Watanabe, in fact, was arrested during his birthday party held at a suite in the same hotel.
The website of the hotel operator said the casino had more than 4,000 slot machines and about 600 game tables at the end of 2021.
Rows of slot machines as well as game tables were still there on Feb. 8. The minimum bet for baccarat was 2,000 pesos ($38).
Watanabe was arrested by Tokyo police following his deportation from the Philippines on Feb. 9.
Three other Japanese believed to have been other leaders in the group were also arrested after being deported from Manila.
Tokyo police suspect the group was involved in a flurry of phone scams that bilked more than 6 billion yen ($45.65 million) from victims in Japan between November 2018 and June 2020.
The sources said Watanabe may have used money collected through the fraud schemes to gamble at the casino and bribe detention guards.
He and the other three suspects are also believed to have bought access to mobile phones while in detention to issue instructions for a series of recent robberies in Japan.
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