A series of agricultural thefts have taken place this year, with livestock and fruit stolen in the northern Kanto region near Tokyo.
The property taken has included pigs, cows and chickens, as well as pears and grapes. In Gunma Prefecture, more than 700 pigs have been stolen, and the amount of damage from the theft of domestic animals has exceeded 26 million yen.
A group of Vietnamese citizens based in Ota in the prefecture were suspected of involvement, most of them technical interns who lost their jobs due to the novel coronavirus pandemic.
--Living together in Gunma
A man in his 30s who lives in a group house for Vietnamese people said, "I sent a message to the boss saying 'I'm looking for a job,' and I received a reply saying: 'Come here. I'll set you up.'" The Gunma prefectural police searched the house where the man was living in late October.
A technical intern for exterior wall construction in Saitama Prefecture since 2017, the man fled that prefecture in February this year due to dissatisfaction with the way he was treated. He came to Ota in September, relying on the so-called boss.
The boss is a 39-year-old man believed to be a leader of the group. He is the self-proclaimed owner of a karaoke establishment and calls himself the "boss of Gunma" in Vietnamese on social media.
The group consisted of 19 members living in two separate houses, of which 13 people aged 20 to 39, including the boss, were arrested on suspicion of staying in Japan illegally. During the search, police seized 30 frozen chickens.
According to investigation sources, most of the 13 people were trained in fields such as agriculture and welding in nine prefectures, including Kumamoto, Shimane and Tokyo. When they came to Japan, each of them paid cash equivalent to about 1 million yen to brokers in their home country.
Some said they had to pay back the debt but lost work due to the novel coronavirus pandemic.
Of the 13 Vietnamese, six were granted a suspended indictment, and the other seven, including their boss, were rearrested on suspicion of separate violations of the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Law.
On social media used by the Vietnamese community in Japan, there was a suspicious post calling for the purchase of pork and fruit. The Gunma prefectural police are investigating the case in connection with the robberies.
The police also arrested another group of four Vietnamese people on suspicion of violating the slaughterhouse law by killing pigs for food without authorization, though none of them were indicted. In this case, the prefectural police seized 14 packets of pork.
Police are trying to identify the farms from which the livestock were stolen through DNA samples from the seized meat, but it is technically difficult. An investigative official said that it is difficult to charge a suspect unless they were arrested in the act.
-- Impact of pandemic
According to the Immigration Services Agency of Japan, as of January 2020, there were 15,561 illegal Vietnamese residents, 8,632 of whom came to Japan as technical interns.
A representative of an organization in Gunma Prefecture that supervises and protects interns said, "Many Vietnamese owe money to brokers. A lot of them go missing, and use social media to get by."
About 40 Vietnamese people live at Daionji temple in Honjo, Saitama Prefecture, including trainees who cannot return home. The number of people staying there has surged since March.
"The novel coronavirus pandemic has exacerbated the poverty of Vietnamese people [in Japan]. If the number of such people increases, we may not be able to continue our support activities," a nun at the temple said.
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