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Food company president nabbed for hiring illegal foreigners

Wednesday, 26 March 2008

The president of a food processing company has been arrested for employing foreigners who were illegally staying in Japan, police said.

Kazuo Manaka, 53, president of Manaka Shoji, a food processing company, in Bando, Ibaraki Prefecture, stands accused of violating the Immigration Control Law, said the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) and Atago Police Station.

The company sells pickled ginger to a major beef bowl chain and supermarkets.

According to police, Manaka hired three foreigners, including a 32-year-old Thai man who was illegally staying in Japan, to work for his company between December 2005 and February this year.

"Initially, I had hired foreign trainees, but their work hours were limited. The number of illegal workers increased while I turned a blind eye to them as they were eager to work," Manaka was quoted as telling police.

In June last year, an officer from Atago Police Station questioned a 38-year-old Thai man, who was an employee of Manaka Shoji, in Tokyo's Minato-ku, and found that he had smuggled himself into Japan with a forged passport. The man was arrested and was subsequently deported.

The finding prompted the MPD and the Tokyo Regional Immigration Bureau to jointly crack down on the company in February this year. They discovered that eight other Thai employees at the company had smuggled themselves into Japan or overstayed their visas.

Manaka had interviewed the Thai employees and paid them each about 8,000 yen a day. He had the foreign employees live in a dormitory on the premises of the company's factory.

When the 38-year-old Thai man was arrested in Tokyo, Manaka reportedly told the other employees, "You guys should not go out so you don't get arrested."

According to a private credit agency, Manaka Shoji was established in 1973 and has annual sales of about 2.97 billion yen.

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