The Osaka Prefectural Police Headquarters (Mainichi)

       OSAKA -- A 20-year-old man who disappeared from a hotel for people recuperating from COVID-19 in this west Japan city was found in Osaka and arrested June 30 on suspicion of breaking the Stimulants Control Act, police have announced.

       The man, identified by Osaka Prefectural Police as Korean national Yu Ik-kong, was arrested on suspicion of possessing stimulants.

       Yu was previously arrested with three others under the same allegations on June 18 following a police search of an accommodation facility in Osaka in connection with a separate case. Immediately after his initial arrest, it emerged that Yu was infected with the coronavirus. Higashi Police Station decided, based on his health and the status of the investigation, to release all of the arrested individuals, and switched their line of inquiry to investigations done on a voluntary basis.

       Yu was entrusted to a guarantor, and his recovery stay on the sixth floor of a hotel in Osaka's Kita Ward began. But he disappeared on the morning of June 22. Investigators suspect that he forced open the handle to a window in the room, and escaped from the facility by climbing down a scaffold outside the building.

       Police found him after placing him on a wanted list and pursuing his whereabouts.

       (Japanese original by Tsuyoshi Yamada, Osaka City News Department)

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