Company President Arrested For Employing Illegal Foreign Workers

Here’s some news you don’t hear everyday:

The 57-year-old president of a meat retailing business in Tokyo has been arrested along with his son for violating immigration laws by hiring Chinese people without work permits, it has been learned.

Kenichi Sato, 57, president of Sato Shokuhin, was arrested along with his 32-year-old son Shinichi, who serves as an executive at the firm.

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Both suspects have reportedly denied the allegations against them, saying they checked the identities of the workers before hiring them.

“Chinese are serious about their jobs and work hard. It would be difficult for us to get Japanese workers for the same hourly rates,” police quoted one of the suspects as saying.

A Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department criminal investigation division and the Tokyo Regional Immigration Bureau had conducted joint inspections three times in the past and confirmed that several Chinese were working without the required permits. Afterwards the company reportedly continued to employ the workers.

Police decided to arrest the pair after one of the Chinese suspects said, “They hired us knowing that we were residing illegally in the country. We were told, ‘If you get caught by the police, don’t say that you were working here.’”

When the story made the TV news yesterday afternoon, TBS gave us a pretty fair look at the situation:

Despite the news that the company president had been arrested, there was still a huge line of customers waiting outside of the store. One woman even said, “If the food tastes good, who cares,” when asked about the case. They then had an expert who stated that Chinese immigrants are mostly doing jobs that Japanese people don’t want to do.