Japanese man arrested in Indonesia over COVID relief fraud

Mitsuhiro Taniguchi, 47, was arrested late Tuesday at a house owned by a fish trader in Central Lampung district by immigration officers backed by local police, National Police spokesperson Dedi Prasetyo said.

“He told the house owner that he wants to invest in fisheries in the area,” Prasetyo said, adding that Taniguchi had stayed at the house for about two weeks before authorities located him.

Taniguchi was wanted by Japanese police for COVID-19 subsidy fraud and left Japan for Indonesia in October 2020, Prasetyo said.

Taniguchi and a group of acquaintances allegedly submitted about 1,700 false applications for COVID-19 relief funds.

The Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department believes they received subsidies for more than 960 of those applications totalling an estimated 960 million yen (USD 7.3 million), Prasetyo said.

Taniguchi, who has been wanted by Japanese police since early May, has been handed over to the Directorate of Immigration's Supervision and Enforcement Division, he said.

The suspect, wearing a face mask, short pants and an immigration detainee's orange vest, was brought by police to a news conference Wednesday in the capital, Jakarta. He made no comment.

Nyoman Gede Surya Mataram, an immigration official, said at the news conference that days before the arrest, Japanese Embassy officials informed his office that they had revoked Taniguchi's passport and that the suspect had last been seen in the Lampung area.

“His presence in Indonesia became illegal after the Japanese authorities revoked his passport,” Prasetyo said. ...continue reading