An undercover police operation saw four Iranians arrested in Tokyo last month on suspicion of dealing drugs, police sources said Tuesday.
The suspects reportedly sold stimulant drugs to police officers pretending to be clients, the sources said.
With three of the four men having already been indicted, the fourth was indicted Tuesday, according to the sources.
This is the second undercover sting carried out by the Metropolitan Police Department. Another four Iranians were arrested as a result of a similar operation conducted in August, according to the police.
One of the men arrested in the latest operation, Ali Reza Ahmady, sold 0.4 gram of a stimulant to an undercover investigator for 15,000 yen on Oct. 25 in the Shibuya district of Tokyo, according to investigators.
Ahmady and the three other men were arrested on the spot after the investigator confirmed his purchase was a stimulant drug.
According to Supreme Court precedents, undercover operations of this kind are illegal if officers are seen to have actively induced criminal acts.
They are viewed as legitimate, however, if investigators have passively provided an opportunity for criminal acts to take place.
The MPD has long exhibited caution over undercover investigations relating to the sale of drugs on the streets.
It has decided to deploy this method, however, in an effort to control what it sees as a surge in drug sales on the streets of the capital, the sources said.