A senior police officer from the Zhuhai special economic zone in Guangdong province confirmed on Thursday that local police are holding five Japanese citizens on suspicion of telephone fraud and slaying a Japanese man.

Bai Zhigang, director of the publicity department under Zhuhai city public security bureau, said that after they were detained, the suspects, who are 23 to 39 years old, admitted that they had defrauded people in Japan via telephone from Zhuhai, located at the mouth of the Pearl River.

They suspects' surnames are Sato, Sugahara, Yauchi, Tsumura and Shinoda.