Police served their third arrest warrant Tuesday to an Indian man in custody who is suspected of helping compatriots enter Japan illegally by abusing the "shore pass" system.
The shore pass system allows people who are transiting at a Japanese airport to leave the airport for 72 hours without a visa.
Satpal Singh, 43, a resident of Kaminokawa, Tochigi Prefecture, was served the warrant specifically on suspicion of helping the illegal entry of two Indian men on June 10, 2000, via Narita airport for a reward of 1 million yen each, they said.
Tochigi police suspect he has helped more than 100 compatriots enter Japan in similar ways since 1999 and helped them find jobs in return for several million yen.
The shore pass rule requires foreign transit airline passengers to possess airline tickets to their destinations.
Singh, in many cases, had the illegal immigrants carry round-trip tickets between Indian cities and Beijing with a plane change at Narita, the main international gateway to Tokyo, according to police.
Many of the illegal immigrants obtained permission to go out of Japanese airports by falsely claiming they were businessmen who wanted to stay in Japan overnight, police said.
It is the third time for Tochigi police to serve a warrant on Singh, following his initial arrest in September on suspicion of helping compatriots stay illegally in Japan and the second time in October on suspicion of helping people obtain work illegally.
They have arrested 16 foreigners, mainly from India, who have been working in Japan illegally with Singh's help and put 31 others into an immigration facility.