A Japanese man Romi Hoshino set up a website Manga Mura or Manga
village, which was an online comic and novels library. However most
of tens of thousands of Manga titles available for its year
or so of operation, were pirated copies. Nevertheless millions read
them. Japanese Manga publishers complained and a task force in
Japan set out taking action. The site was blocked in April 2018,
but Hoshimo fled.
Japan's Content Overseas Distribution Association has said
that Manga rights owners have lost billions revenues due to the
site's alleged hundreds of millions of visits. Hoshimo was
accused of massive scale copyright theft, and became the subject of
an Interpol alert.
The tracing of Hoshimo led to the Philippines, the Japanese
embassy sought local assistance and he was arrested last week in
Manila airport. Under local law he is deemed a risk to public
safety and security, and so will likely be deported to Japan where
he will probably face a criminal trial.
