TOKYO (Kyodo) -- When police searched a group of abandoned motels in a city some 50 kilometers northeast of Tokyo earlier this year, they found more than 20 Vietnamese men and women living together in a community that included a restaurant and a karaoke bar.

"There is possibility that these were people who had nowhere else to go," an investigative source said.

The Vietnamese, who have since been deported, were living in about 10 motels that were no longer in use in Bando, Ibaraki Prefecture, according to the police. It is believed some of them had fled from Japanese firms where they were working as technical intern trainees.

The motels were owned by a 40-year-old Vietnamese company executive, who was indicted in late October on the charge of abetting their illegal stay by providing them with housing.

The executive has told the police she provided housing after being "requested by a group involved with illegal overstayers," according to an investigative source said.

Two to four people were living in each motel, paying 40,000 yen ($262) a month in rent, said the source.

Located along the Tone River, Bando has a population of about 50,000, with vegetable cultivation its prime industry.

After entering a gravel path from a highway and proceeding about 100 meters, a Kyodo News reporter who visited the area late last month saw a group of old one-story motels lined up in a U-shape. One of the buildings still had a sign that read "Vietnamese restaurant."

According to investigative sources, most of the Vietnamese people who lived there had come to Japan as technical intern trainees, believing the claim that they "can earn money" in the country.

But they left their jobs due to low wages or after being assaulted by their bosses, the sources said, adding it is believed that they moved to the motels after living together in neighboring Chiba Prefecture and exchanging information through social media.

In Japan, a number of foreign technical intern trainees have disappeared from their workplace due to a poor work environment. A record 9,753 such trainees went missing in 2023, Justice Ministry sources said citing preliminary data.

By country, Vietnam topped the list with 5,481, followed by Myanmar at 1,765 and China at 816. Nearly half of all those that disappeared were engaged in construction-related jobs, said the sources.

A woman who lives near the motels recollects, "I couldn't sleep because of the sounds of karaoke and voices echoing all night long."