Japanese fugitives Yuki Watanabe and Tomonobu Saito, in custody of Philippine authorities, shortly before they were deported on Wednesday night. Bureau of Immigration/File photo
MANILA - Four men suspected of coordinating robberies across Japan from the Philippines under the name of "Luffy" and other pseudonyms were indicted by Tokyo prosecutors on Monday for theft in connection with separate fraud cases.
Kiyoto Imamura, Toshiya Fujita and Yuki Watanabe, all 38, and Tomonobu Kojima, 45, were initially arrested for theft after being deported to Japan from the Philippines in early February and served fresh arrest warrants over the fraud cases.
While the investigation into their alleged involvement in the series of robberies continues, the prosecutors indicted Imamura for stealing a cash card from a woman in Saitama Prefecture near Tokyo by pretending to be a Financial Services Agency official and withdrawing some 2.3 million yen ($17,400) yen in April 2019.
The three others were charged with pretending to be police officers or other officials in order to take cash cards from Tokyo residents. The cards were used to withdraw a total of about 4.1 million yen in November of the same year.
The prosecutors have not disclosed whether the four have admitted to the charges.
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