Nineteen Japanese men detained in Cambodia in January on suspicion of participating in phone and online scams have been deported to their homeland, according to the police.

The group boarded a chartered flight organised by the Japanese government on Tuesday at Phnom Penh International Airport, Cambodian National Police spokesperson General Chhay Kim Khouen said.

The Immigration Police, part of Cambodia’s Ministry of Interior, said in a statement that the men were deported because they violated immigration law by living and working in Cambodia illegally. They will not be allowed to re-enter the country for three years, it said.

Tokyo police have obtained arrest warrants for the 19 men on suspicion of running phone scams from Cambodia that targeted people in Japan, Japanese public broadcaster NHK reported.

NHK said Cambodian authorities searched the men’s hotel rooms and “discovered a list of Japanese citizens believed to be targets in a fraud scheme”.

The suspects were taken into custody in the southern city of Sihanoukville on January 24 and sent to the capital, Phnom Penh, where they were held after being investigated by the interior ministry.

A Cambodian official at Phnom Penh International Airport who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media said the men were taking a chartered Malaysia Airlines flight to Kuala Lumpur, where they would transfer to a waiting Japanese plane.

He said a group of Japanese policemen came from Japan to escort the 19 men home.

At Phnom Penh’s airport, a convoy of several vehicles with heavy protection from Cambodian and Japanese police quickly drove directly to the waiting plane on the tarmac.

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