NAGOYA -- Immigration authorities arrested 11 South Korean women Friday for allegedly violating the Immigration Control and Refugee-Recognition Law by overstaying their visas and working as divers for abalone and other fish in Kii-Nagashima, Mie Prefecture.
According to officials at the Nagoya Immigration Bureau, the women, aged between 43 and 60, entered the country on a short-stay visa that allows them up to 15 days in Japan but forbids them to work.
However, the women worked as divers along the coast near Kii-Nagashima and were selling the abalone and turban shells they caught to a local fish processing firm for about 300 yen to 400 yen per kilogram, the officials said.
Three of the women had overstayed their visas, and one had been in Japan for 23 months, according to immigration authorities.
All of them had experience fishing at South Korea's Cheju Island, they said. One of the women had come to Japan on several occasions in a similar manner, they added.
While the fishing firm said it had not hired the women, authorities were looking into the possibility that it indirectly led them to stay in Japan.