OSAKA -- A man from Taiwan suspected of being involved in a major counterfeiting scam told police that fake 10,000 yen notes were delivered to him in Tokyo via courier by a "mafia" group in Taiwan, police said Thursday.

Tseng Hsin-lung, 33, who was arrested Jan. 12 in Osaka and has since been indicted, was quoted as saying: "Around 2,000 bills were sent to Tokyo by a mafia group in Taiwan. Of them, some 1,200 were delivered to Osaka by a courier."

Police have confiscated about 2,000 bogus 10,000 yen bills bearing identical serial numbers to those found in Tokyo, Chiba, Kanagawa, Shizuoka and Osaka prefectures since January. Some bills matched the forged "Wa D-52" bank notes used in a 1992 case in Osaka that led to the arrests of members of a Hong Kong-based counterfeiting ring.

Tseng's statements shed light on how the bills entered Japan, and police are investigating the possibility of a counterfeiting ring in Taiwan, they said.

Tseng told police he was contacted by the underworld, which he had known for some time through dealings in counterfeit credit cards. He was told by the group that of the 2,000 fake bills sent to Tokyo, 800 were "disposed of" near Tokyo, police said.

He was then asked to take care of the remainder and was told that he could take half of the profits as a reward, police said.

The group asked Tseng if any of his friends could accept a parcel with counterfeit bills, they said. Tseng contacted a friend from Taiwan living in Osaka and asked him to accept a package that was to be delivered from Tokyo, without telling him about the contents, according to police.

Tseng arrived at Kansai International Airport on Jan. 11 with four others from Taiwan who have since been arrested in Osaka and indicted as his alleged accomplices.

He then met his friend in Osaka and picked up the parcel, which contained around 1,200 fake bills, and he and his accomplices used around 20 of them but were arrested the next day, police said.

In connection with the scam, a Chinese national who came to Tokyo via Hong Kong and a Japanese man who was a member of an underworld group have also been arrested, while three others from Taiwan have been placed on an Interpol wanted list.

Alleged forger held

A South Korean man was arrested Thursday on suspicion of conspiring with his older brother in Japan to forge international driver's licenses in the United States and sell them here, primarily over the Internet, police said.

Lee Gyo Chon, a 39-year-old resident of California, was arrested on a plane traveling to Japan from the U.S., investigators said. Lee had been put on Interpol's international wanted list. Lee put together the fake licenses in the U.S. and mailed them to Japan, where his brother advertised them over the Internet, selling around 300, investigators alleged.

Lee's brother -- who has already been convicted of forgery -- was arrested in June in Tokyo.