Japan will hand over to the United States a Japanese man and woman charged with defrauding U.S. aid organizations of a combined $14,500 by falsely claiming they had survived the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, judicial sources said Thursday.
Hidetoshi Cho, 47, and company executive Toshiko Yamasaki, 45, both from Tokyo, have been charged by U.S. authorities with fraud, the sources said.
The Tokyo High Court has judged that the government can legally hand over the pair, who have been detained, in line with a bilateral extradition treaty at the behest of the United States, the sources said.
Cho and Yamasaki are expected to be turned over to the United States possibly by the end of this month on an order by Justice Minister Chieko Nono, the sources said.
The two are accused of swindling checks worth a total of $14,500 out of organizations, including the U.S. Red Cross, even though they suffered no injury or damage in the attacks, they said
The two also allegedly attempted to defraud the U.S. government out of $1 million by trying to take out a postdisaster loan in that amount. The U.S. government did not approve their application for the loan, the sources said.