Elderly people accounted for nearly 80 percent of all victims of confirmed fraud cases in the first half of 2015, according to provisional data released by the National Police Agency.
"Special fraud" cases, including swindling the elderly by impersonating their children over the phone and asking for urgent money transfers, totaled ¥23.65 billion, the NPA said Thursday.
That total includes cases in which people are charged fees for visits to websites they have never used, and those in which people are offered fake corporate debt or stock issues.