MANILA — The Philippines has taken steps to ensure foreign nationals detained in its main immigration facility in Manila cannot conduct criminal activities the way the "Luffy"-led Japanese crime ring organized burglaries until they were busted a year ago, the country's justice secretary said recently.

"We have pinpointed the weaknesses in the system" of immigration detention, Jesus Crispin Remulla said in an interview with Kyodo News last Thursday, adding the Philippines has learned lessons from the case, in which four leaders of the ring orchestrated crimes in Japan in 2021 and 2022 while inside the facility.

Kiyoto Imamura, who the Japanese police suspect used the pseudonym Luffy when planning the crimes, and the three others are believed to have coordinated the robberies from the immigration detention facility via an encrypted messaging app through which they offered high-paid jobs to people in Japan for the executions of the crimes.

• 'Luffy' crime ring member arrested for ordering Japan robberies from PH
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The Philippine justice secretary said such cases "will not happen anymore."

In late January last year, Remulla first revealed that the ringleader of the gang known to have gone by the name Luffy was being held in the Philippines.

Following the deportation of Imamura and three others to Japan in February last year, the department placed a limit to the detainees' access to such communication tools as smartphones at the facility, Remulla said.

The department also transferred or dismissed some guards at the facility and has done regular shuffles of personnel, Remulla said, adding he intends to make a surprise visit to the facility to check the situation there.

"It became very apparent when this case came because the jail facility was treated seemingly like a kingdom of jailers, that they seem to earn money from everything that people were doing inside," he said. "So we have to put a stop to that."

With the four Japanese men having sought to avoid deportation by requesting lawyers in the Philippines to file trumped-up domestic charges, Remulla also warned that the lawyers involved could face disbarment, he said.

• BI working with DOJ vs 'sue me' scheme by foreigners to avoid deportation

The Manila facility had 17 Japanese detainees at the beginning of 2023 before the deportation of the four men, and the number decreased to 12, according to the department.

The total number of detainees at the facility currently stands at over 270, more than twice its capacity, and the majority are nationals of China and South Korea, Remulla said.

The justice secretary underscored his country's improved coordination with the governments of China, South Korea and other countries whose citizens are detained in the Philippines for their swifter expulsion.

The Japanese crime ring is suspected of being involved in a total of over 50 cases of robbery, theft and other crimes across 14 prefectures in Japan. The four ringleaders were indicted for some of the cases in December last year.

• Crimes in Japan rise in 2022 for first time in 20 years
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