A Chinese woman in her 30s has been deported from Japan for illegally working as a tour guide for foreign tourists in a southwestern Japan city and getting paid for taking them to duty-free shops, investigative sources said Thursday.
The woman, who was in Japan on a dependent visa, is believed to have earned about ¥30 million ($263,000) from duty-free shops in Fukuoka for taking tourists there between May and November last year.
She was also ordered to pay fines for violating immigration laws by working as a tour guide without a work permit or proper license, they said.
Meanwhile, the police sent papers to prosecutors on a Chinese student in his 20s regarding similar violations, the sources said. He earned at least ¥46 million from duty-free shops in the city between September 2014 and September last year.
The police also sent papers to prosecutors on six executives of three tourist agencies and three duty-free shops in Fukuoka for violating the law by hiring such tour guides and paying them.
The number of illegal tour guides is said to be on the rise on the back of the growing number of overseas tourists to Japan.
A Japan Tourism Agency official said that it was receiving numerous complaints from tourists, especially Chinese, saying their tour guide was not properly licensed and tried to get them to buy expensive goods.