MANILA — A Japanese man wanted in his home country for allegedly arranging a fake marriage with a compatriot and a Filipina was nabbed in San Miguel, Manila, authorities said Wednesday.
According to the Bureau of Immigration, Hiratsuka Masakazu, 63, was served a warrant of deportation in a joint operation by its operatives, local police, National Bureau of Investigation agents, and Japanese authorities.
The bureau said a man claiming to be an NBI agent was also apprehended after he tried to interfere with the operation. It was confirmed that he was not an NBI employee, the BI said.
The agency said Masakazu is reportedly a subject of an arrest warrant issued by a Tokyo court last April for making false entries in a notarized deed of marriage.
The suspect allegedly conspired with accomplices in faking a marriage of a Japanese man to a Filipina to enable the latter to obtain a long-term immigrant visa in Japan.
The BI said Masakazu and his cohorts submitted to a Japanese civil registry office the certificate of the sham wedlock which happened through a civil wedding ceremony in the Philippines.
Masakazu is currently detained at the BI detention facility in Taguig City. Besides being an undesirable foreigner, he will also be deported for being an undocumented alien as his passport was already canceled by the Japanese government.
The BI said he has been placed on its blacklist and "perpetually banned from re-entering the Philippines."
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