Man suspected of helping illegal immigrants rent apartments

YOKOHAMA, Jan. 8 Kyodo -
A 41-year-old Tokyo man has been arrested on suspicion of helping illegally
staying Chinese to rent apartments in Japan by using fabricated documents to
give them fake Japanese identities, police said Thursday.
Shizuo Ito, a former company executive, was quoted as telling investigators
that he had used fabricated documents under Japanese names in about 200
apartment lease contracts in the Tokyo area and elsewhere since around November
2006.
He was arrested on suspicion of brokering two leasing contracts for apartments
in Yokohama and elsewhere using a fabricated income and withholding tax
certificate under the name of a Japanese acquaintance from March to April last
year, according to the police.
Illegally staying Chinese people entered the apartments.
He ran advertisements in free Chinese papers offering help in leasing
apartments. He received a month's rent as a fee and netted a total of about 15
million yen, they said.
The Kanagawa prefectural police have raided about 40 apartments in Tokyo,
Kanagawa and Chiba prefectures and arrested 17 Chinese men and women for
violation of immigration law, according to the police.
==Kyodo
2009-01-08 21:24:00