OSAKA -- A man from Taiwan suspected of being involved in a major counterfeiting scam told police that fake 10,000 yen notes were delivered to him in Tokyo via courier by a "mafia" group in Taiwan, police said Thursday.
Tseng Hsin-lung, 33, who was arrested Jan. 12 in Osaka and has since been indicted, was quoted as saying: "Around 2,000 bills were sent to Tokyo by a mafia group in Taiwan. Of them, some 1,200 were delivered to Osaka by a courier."
Police have confiscated about 2,000 bogus 10,000 yen bills bearing identical serial numbers to those found in Tokyo, Chiba, Kanagawa, Shizuoka and Osaka prefectures since January. Some bills matched the forged "Wa D-52" bank notes used in a 1992 case in Osaka that led to the arrests of members of a Hong Kong-based counterfeiting ring.