Police said Sunday they have dispatched investigators to the Philippines to exchange information with local police about a Japanese man arrested in Manila last month on suspicion of possessing counterfeit yen bills.
Toshiharu Mitsui, 49, of Hiratsuka, Kanagawa Prefecture, was apprehended Sept. 25 after a taxi driver complained to police the previous day that he had paid him with a phony yen bill.
Police found about 300 bogus 10,000 yen bills bearing the same serial number in Mitsui's hotel room.
Kanagawa Prefectural Police dispatched investigators to Manila because a number of fake yen bills, some with the same serial number as those found in the hotel, have turned up in Tokyo and surrounding areas recently, they said.
Philippine police said earlier that Mitsui told them he works for a computer company in Japan and that he made the fake bills himself with the aid of a computer.
Mitsui is in the custody of Manila police.