
Vietnamese technical intern arrested over Saga murder
In the incident, which occurred on Saturday, 40-year-old Japanese language instructor Maiko Mukumoto, a resident of the house, and her mother were stabbed with a knife-like object. The incident left Mukumoto dead and the mother, who is in her 70s, injured.
Suspect Dam Duy Khang, who is working in Japan under the foreign technical intern training program, was arrested on Sunday. He told the police that he does not want to say anything.

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'Well-oiled system' Chinese groups in the district thrive on the "Prato system," long rife with corruption and irregularities, particularly in the fast-fashion sector, such as labor and safety violations plus tax and customs fraud. Prato's 5,000-odd apparel and knitwear businesses, mostly small, Chinese-run subcontractors, churn out low-priced items that end up in shops across Europe. They pop up quickly and shut down just as fast, playing a cat-and-mouse game with authorities to avoid taxes or fines. Fabric is smuggled from China, evading customs duties and taxes, while profits are returned to China via illegal money transfers. Sewing machines and other equipment in a fast-fashion outlet factory owned by a Chinese company in Prato on Friday. Prato's 5,000-odd apparel and knitwear businesses, mostly small, Chinese-run subcontractors, churn out low-priced items that end up in shops across Europe. | AFP-JIJI To stay competitive, the sector relies on cheap, around-the-clock labor, mostly from China and Pakistan, which Tescaroli told a Senate committee in January was "essential for its proper functioning." "It's not just one or two bad apples, but a well-oiled system they use, and do very well — closing, reopening, not paying taxes," said Riccardo Tamborrino, a Sudd Cobas union organizer leading strikes on behalf of immigrants. Investigators say the immigrants work seven days a week, 13 hours a day for about €3 an hour. Tamborrino said Prato's apparel industry was "free from laws, from contracts." "It's no secret," he said. "All this is well known." 'Miss Fashion' Trucks lumber day and night through the streets of Prato's industrial zone, an endless sprawl of asphalt lined with warehouses and apparel showrooms with names such as "Miss Fashion" and "Ohlala Pronto Moda." Open metal doors reveal loaded garment racks, rolls of fabric and stacks of boxes awaiting shipment — the final step controlled by Zhang Naizhong, whom prosecutors dub the "boss of bosses" within Italy's Chinese mafia. A 2017 court document described Zhang as the "leading figure in the unscrupulous circles of the Chinese community" in Europe, with a monopoly on the transport sector and operations in France, Spain, Portugal and Germany. Zhang Dayong, the man killed in Rome alongside his girlfriend in April, was Zhang Naizhong's deputy. The shootings followed three massive fires set at his warehouses outside Paris and Madrid in previous months. Nannucci believes Naizhong could be in China, after his 2022 acquittal for usury in a huge ongoing Chinese mafia trial plagued by problems — including a lack of translators and missing files. On a recent weekday, a handful of Pakistani men picketed outside the company that had employed them, after it shut down overnight having just agreed to give workers a contract under Italian law. Muhammed Akram, 44, saw his boss quietly emptying the factory of sewing machines, irons and other equipment. "Sneaky boss," he said, in broken Italian. Chinese garment workers, who are in the majority in Prato and often brought to Italy by the mafia, never picket, union activists say — they are too frightened to protest. Trading favors Changes in apparel manufacturing, globalization and migration have all contributed to the Prato system. So has corruption. In May 2024, the second-in-command within Prato's Carabinieri police was accused of giving Italian and Chinese entrepreneurs — among them a chamber of commerce businessman — access to the police database for information, including on workers. Police complaints from attacked workers "ended up in a drawer, never reaching the court," Sudd Cobas organizer Francesca Ciuffi. Prato's mayor resigned in June in a corruption investigation, accused of trading favors with the businessman for votes. In recent months, the union has secured regular contracts under national law for workers at over 70 companies. That will not help those caught in Prato's mafia war, however, where "bombs have exploded and warehouses have been burned down," said Ciuffi. "People who wake up in the morning, quietly going to work, risk getting seriously injured, if not worse, because of a war that doesn't concern them."