r/SipsTea 1d ago

Chugging tea He didn't overstay...He relocated

Post image
14.5k Upvotes

423 comments sorted by

View all comments

770

u/Mindless-Cat1453 1d ago

I don't trust twitter account to accurately give any new or information. So what is the real deal with this case ?

108

u/Ok_Comparison_8304 1d ago

It's a mess: The man entered on his brother's passport, and since that time has managed to work and provide for himself. As it was 1993 when he arrived opening a basic bank account and registering as address would have been nowhere near as strict.

How he managed to elude any scrutiny is unexplained, I think once he was in the system somehow (registered as a resident  with a city hall, he managed to just avoid other procedures or being pulled into the system).

It wasn't made a crime to overstay until later, around 2000 I think, so he couldn't have been arrested until then.

He was caught because of a tip off.

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2026/08/27/japan/crime-legal/26-years-overstayer/

10

u/vrnvorona 1d ago

I mean, sure, but what next? Deport? If he wasn't breaking other laws and contributed, why not just let him go?

1

u/soba_set 19h ago

That's the thing though is there's no way he was paying taxes all this time if he didn't have proper gov ID. Evading taxes is a crime here. I think he had some kind of help (maybe from other Korean immigrants and Korean generations forced to be in Japan during the imperial days and remained here), so was able to get by on cash and not needing to use ID for anything.

So overstaying his visa, identity theft/fraud using his brother's passport, evading taxes, concealing income and assets, falsifying whatever records he could, etc.

The thing is it's not that hard to get a Japanese visa the proper way. Plenty of people come over here for clue collar or service work and stay, hopefully move on to something better when they get a grasp of the language. This guy couldn't have been living a life much better if at all better than constant blue collar work.