Chinese suspect had money trouble with 2 Japanese slain in Dalian

Kyodo News

a day ago

KYODO NEWS - 2 hours ago - 19:18 | World, All, Japan
A Chinese man detained in late May on suspicion of murdering two Japanese nationals in Dalian, northeastern China, was involved in a financial dispute with the victims, who were his business partners, a source familiar with Sino-Japanese relations said Thursday.
Hong Kong's Sing Tao daily reported the suspect Yuan Chenggong believed he had been deceived by the two Japanese men over the purchase of a hot spring hotel near Mt. Fuji, citing information posted on China's WeChat platform by a mainland Chinese journalist.
Yuan, who founded a real estate company in Tokyo in 2021, acquired Fuji Sansuikan Hotel near Lake Kawaguchi at the foot of Japan's highest peak and also invested in a mineral water factory in Japan, the newspaper said.
It pointed to two possible causes of the Dalian native's conflict with the Japanese men. One is his discovery that his name was not on the hotel's real estate registration certificate, leading him to believe that the two Japanese men had deceived him, and the other is his possible failure to pay money owed to them.
The two Japanese, who were in China on a short-term stay, were killed on May 23 in a Dalian village some 60 kilometers away from downtown areas of the port city, leaving locals puzzled about why the murders happened there.
Dalian security authorities detained Yuan on May 24 and the Japanese Consulate General in Shenyang was informed of the killings the following day. They have not identified the two Japanese victims.
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2 Japanese murdered in China's Dalian, Chinese suspect detained