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Increasingly desperate Vietnamese blamed for surging crime wave

26 Comments

"When I hear news reports about thefts of cattle or pigs, those guys are the first thing that comes to mind," Mr T, a Tokyo realtor who specializes in housing for foreign students and technical interns, tells Asahi Geino (Nov 19). Many of whom, in the last several years, have been from Vietnam. 

"Unlike Japanese, Vietnamese are easily moved to loneliness and like to congregate into groups. They think nothing of keeping on their shoes indoors, and in many cases the costs of fixing up a property after they vacate are excessive. I'd say about 90% of landlords won't deal with them. 

"The ones from big cities like Ho Chi Minh and Hanoi are all right, but the ones from the countryside eat wild animals. Before, a Vietnamese from the port city of Da Nang proudly showed me 20 frogs he was keeping in the air conditioner housing. 'Don't you think they look tasty?' he asked me. Even though I told him it was prohibited to butcher animals in his pad, I doubt if he understood me." 

On Oct 26, police in Ota City, Gunma Prefecture, arrested a group of Vietnamese for slaughtering a pig in their residence. 

"In addition to the 39-year-old man -- the self-described operator of a karaoke salon -- who is suspected of being the ringleader, we arrested a total of 13 people in their 20s and 30s," a police source tells the magazine. "Their leader, who's referred to as the 'big boss of Gunma,' even posted a video of them cutting up the pig on a social network, followed by scenes of them barbequing the pig in the parking lot beside the apartment.

"Some of them were arrested for visa overstay, but the prefectural police are also investigating suspected animal rustling," he added. 

Concealed beneath the apartment floor, police found 30 frozen chickens along with a model gun, imitation sword and aluminum baseball bat. 

Since summer, farmers in northern Kanto have reported a rapid increase in thefts, including 719 pigs and large numbers of cattle and chickens. 

Also during October, police arrested a Vietnamese national in Kamisato, Saitama, on suspicion of illegal animal butchering. 

"He'd come to Japan two years ago on a technical trainee program," says a reporter on the local news desk. He told interrogators that he had no work due to the coronavirus pandemic and had purchased the pig via an SNS. He ate it with his compatriots. 

"Some other suspects, who were also hard up for money, were caught stealing pears from an orchard," he  added. 

A source with ties to a yakuza gang that brokers Vietnamese workers, referred to only as "K," told the magazine the crime spree is due to the pandemic.

"The trainees can't find any part-time work," he says. And students have to pay school tuition even though they can't attend class, because it's all moved online. They're hungry. So they go online and are recruited for illegal jobs." 

According to Ministry of Justice data, some 420,000 Vietnamese are in the country (as of last June), putting Vietnam in third place after Chinese (780,000) and South Koreans (430,000). But if only limited to technical trainees, Vietnamese rank in first place, with 210,000, as opposed to 80,000 Chinese and 30,000 Filipinos. 

A sidebar accompanying the text lists 19 known incidents of thefts, robberies, assaults and murders committed by Vietnamese over the past two years. 

"Most of the students here from China and South Korean are from fairly affluent families," says the aforementioned "K." "On the other hand, many of the Vietnamese come from the lower economic rung, and borrow as much as 2 million yen, which they pay to brokers, to get them into Japan."

© Japan Today

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26 Comments
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Racist article victim blaming Vietnamese exploited for cheap labour.

2 ( +19 / -17 )

Racist article victim blaming Vietnamese exploited for cheap labour.

Maybe, but 719 pigs translates into a heckova lot of pork.

4 ( +16 / -12 )

It has nothing to do with racism when its based on facts.

Political correctness is destroying this world, as we are blind to reality.

8 ( +24 / -16 )

"The ones from big cities like Ho Chi Minh and Hanoi are all right, but the ones from the countryside eat wild animals. Before, a Vietnamese from the port city of Da Nang proudly showed me 20 frogs he was keeping in the air conditioner housing. 'Don't you think they look tasty?' he asked me. Even though I told him it was prohibited to butcher animals in his pad, I doubt if he understood me."

Vietnamese cover huge area, so just don't expect all people coming from Vietnam are from big cities like Ho Chi Minh or Hanoi. If they were from big cities got decent salaries no need for them to work as trainee that sometimes can be underpaid compared to Japanese labor standard.

"Some other suspects, who were also hard up for money, were caught stealing pears from an orchard," he added.

"The trainees can't find any part-time work," he says. And students have to pay school tuition even though they can't attend class, because it's all moved online. They're hungry. So they go online and are recruited for illegal jobs."

many of the Vietnamese come from the lower economic rung, and borrow as much as 2 million yen, which they pay to brokers, to get them into Japan."

Those trainee even they know they might get opportunities elsewhere aside companies that brought to Japan they just couldn't easily get new companies. Their options being limited by trainee visa from beginning. Especially lot of them need to cover expensive cost to come and get hired in Japan, which they paid it through debt.

https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/backstories/1316/

According to Ministry of Justice data, some 420,000 Vietnamese are in the country (as of last June), putting Vietnam in third place after Chinese (780,000) and South Koreans (430,000). But if only limited to technical trainees, Vietnamese rank in first place, with 210,000, as opposed to 80,000 Chinese and 30,000 Filipinos.

A sidebar accompanying the text lists 19 known incidents of thefts, robberies, assaults and murders committed by Vietnamese over the past two years.

It's easy for them to become attention in many Japanese outlet, since the number is rising recently of being done by single nationality.

Compare the number to the whole both of population of Vietnamese in Japan 420,000 to 19 of crime incidents of thefts, robberies, assaults and murders that only 0.004% or try to use number of Vietnamese trainees in Japan 210,000 it's still 0.008%. Still less than 0.01% of Vietnamese in Japan really commit those crime.

6 ( +11 / -5 )

A long time ago I talked with an old man who told me a story about some disagreeable things that Japanese immigrants were known to do in this country, about a hundred years ago. The point is that norms differ among different societies. What one group finds acceptable, another would not. However, theft is pretty much universally condemned.

9 ( +11 / -2 )

so why write as if all Vietnamese are involved in criminal activities - proof please

There is no question they were arrested. Now the burden is on the state to arraign them and prove them guilty in a court of law. Twenty frozen chickens hidden beneath the floor are likely to be treated as evidence.

8 ( +13 / -5 )

Mr T, a Tokyo realtor who specializes in housing for foreign students and technical interns

The reason why he specializes in this is because the vast majority of other realtors won't.

6 ( +8 / -2 )

What else does Japan expect from bringing in these foreigners under this so called trainee programs ( which in reality are just dirt cheap labor )! The people who sign up for these are probably coming from poor and ‘ rough ‘ backgrounds. They will definitely continue to live the same lifestyle as back home as they find it near impossible to adapt! You can’t expect a hyena to behave like an elephant!

11 ( +14 / -3 )

Please treat them fair with decent salaries.

5 ( +11 / -6 )

It is not dirt cheap labor. It is illegal in Japan to pay foreign workers less for the same work as Japanese. They are doing jobs that Japanese themselves do not want to do.

In the future they will only have themselves to blame for the underclass of marginalised and discriminated immigrants.

3 ( +9 / -6 )

I’m glad the media is mentioning countries these days.

I’m sick of them throwing all nationalities in the same gaijin basket

4 ( +9 / -5 )

Japan does NOT have a shortage of workers. It has a shortage of people willing to work.

Millions of housewives sat at home, not to mention the 400,000 hikikomori living with their parents.

7 ( +13 / -6 )

 It has a shortage of people willing to work.

Millions of housewives sat at home

Piffle. I did my stint as a housewife, and I was far too busy to ‘sit at home’.

0 ( +5 / -5 )

Cleo... not blaming the housewives, especially those bringing up children. More the society that “encourages” women to stop working on marriage and makes it difficult to rejoin the workforce.

5 ( +9 / -4 )

According to Ministry of Justice data, some 420,000 Vietnamese are in the country (as of last June), putting Vietnam in third place after Chinese (780,000) and South Koreans (430,000). But if only limited to technical trainees, Vietnamese rank in first place, with 210,000, as opposed to 80,000 Chinese and 30,000 Filipinos. 

So if the article is about hard up technical trainees, why start bringing potentially long term foreign residents into this? *
3 ( +3 / -0 )

Deport them let their country take them back. Not only them but also locals has a hard time looking for jobs because of covid.

-3 ( +5 / -8 )

It is not dirt cheap labor. It is illegal in Japan to pay foreign workers less for the same work as Japanese. They are doing jobs that Japanese themselves do not want to do

That's why it's called trainee because they are in "training" program, even they don't learn much prior they come to Japan. Since they are in training program some of them sometimes will get less than what their Japanese worker will get.

https://www.nippon.com/en/news/yjj2020040200818/foreign-technical-trainees-work-at-low-pay-in-japan.html

6 ( +6 / -0 )

A source with ties to a yakuza gang that brokers Vietnamese workers, referred to only as "K," told the magazine the crime spree is due to the pandemic.

"The trainees can't find any part-time work," he says. And students have to pay school tuition even though they can't attend class, because it's all moved online. They're hungry. So they go online and are recruited for illegal jobs." 

"... many of the Vietnamese come from the lower economic rung, and borrow as much as 2 million yen, which they pay to brokers, to get them into Japan."

This pretty much says it all- the "illegal jobs" also often yak-related (i.e. steal 1000's of pears which the yaks then sell with their connections, which diverts attention to the 'dirty foreigner' away from the one who recruited them in the first place and whose recruitment fees they are desperate to pay off.)

5 ( +5 / -0 )

Regor

I agreed you with you 100% deport anyone committed a crime back to their country. However I totally disagreed with your second point “locals has a hard time looking for jobs because of covid”.If your second point is correct Japan would never needed to import cheap labour from other countries. Whether it is before the covid or after the covid, there are many jobs that Japanese refused to do just like America or Australia. Big companies around the world are addicted to cheap labour and big profit. This problem will never go away until the issue of inequality is address and resolved. By the way this problem is also applying to the locals Japanese workers. Ask yourself this question, if a company can bring in foreign a worker to do a Japanese job and save 50% of the costs, why would they employ Japanese workers? Who to blame for the job loss in Japan? Governments & Companies are colluded.

-1 ( +2 / -3 )

Racist article victim blaming Vietnamese exploited for cheap labour.

This article is reporting the story- it isn’t making a value judgment. Too many so-called “journalists” have learned to write stories based on their Leftist world views instead of just reporting what is happening. There have been way too many of these types of articles posted on JT so I must point out when they report straight as well. The people making critical statements in the article are not ‘victim blaming’. They are pointing out cultural differences and the failure of some immigrants to comply with local laws.

4 ( +4 / -0 )

@zichi: When people lose their jobs receive no support or help they will eventually have to turn to crime just to survive.

There are other choices that most foreigners in desperate circumstances in Japan choose over crime. I do agree with you however that people are self-centered and selfish.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

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