Philippine police have arrested a local man for allegedly killing two Japanese men in Manila in 2014 and 2015 in a "murder for insurance" case, local media reported.
Police arrested army reservist Kirby Patricio Tan at his home in southern Manila and also seized guns and a grenade, a report said Saturday.
Tan is suspected in the Oct. 18, 2014, shooting death of 32-year-old Shinsuke Toba, who ran an osteopathic clinic in Yamanashi Prefecture, and Tatsuya Nakamura, 42, an acquaintance of Toba from Yamanashi, sometime between Aug. 31 and Sept. 1, 2015.
Tan is thought to have been hired to murder Toba and Nakamura by other Japanese men who conspired to kill the pair to collect insurance money.
Toba was shot dead by a motorcycle gunman while visiting Manila. Nakamura's bullet-riddled body was found on a Manila street on Sept. 1, 2015.
Nakamura became a suspect in Toba's murder after Japanese authorities found that his company had been designated as the beneficiary of ¥100 million in travel insurance money from Toba. Although Nakamura was killed as well, Japanese police handed papers on him to prosecutors last July over Toba's murder.
Three other Japanese men and a Filipino woman have been indicted in connection with Toba's murder. One of the men was convicted in November last year of conspiring to murder him and given a 15-year prison term, while the woman was convicted in December for aiding them.