Tag - scam

 
 

SCAM

Kiyoto Imamura, who the police suspect used the pseudonym "Luffy" when planning and coordinating scams and burglaries.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Dec 5, 2023
'Luffy' crime ring members served fresh warrants over 2022 robbery
The latest arrests mark the final charges from eight cases of burglary across the country subject to intensive police investigation since June.
Suspects arrested aboard a flight from Cambodia for their alleged involvement in phone scams arrive at Tokyo's Haneda Airport on Wednesday night.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Nov 9, 2023
Japanese phone scam suspects speak of harsh conditions in Cambodia
One man said he had only one day off a month and was "not allowed to go outside" the apartment from which the alleged scam was run.
Japanese police investigators arrive at Phnom Penh International Airport on Tuesday.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Nov 8, 2023
Japanese fraud suspects extradited from Cambodia
Investigators say the suspects made fraudulent phone calls from Cambodia posing as nursing home staff and lawyers, aiming to scam victims in Japan.
An apartment building in Phnom Penh where a group of Japanese nationals was detained for allegedly running a phone scam operation.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Nov 7, 2023
25 alleged fraudsters held in Cambodia to be extradited to Japan
Investigators from several Japanese prefectural police authorities have been dispatched to Phnom Penh to facilitate the transfer.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Feb 20, 2020
Losses in Japan from cash card collection scams surged in 2019
Losses from cash card collection scams more than doubled in 2019 from the previous year, with swindlers posing as police officers or bank workers visiting victims' homes and tricking them into handing over their cards, a police report showed Thursday.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Aug 12, 2019
Tokyo police use dog walkers to raise awareness among elderly people about fraud cases
Dogs and their owners paraded down streets in Tokyo on Monday to help prevent people from becoming victims of frauds in which swindlers make phone calls pretending to be relatives asking for money.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
May 23, 2019
Under Japan's revised anti-gangster law, yakuza boss told to pay damages for money transfer scam
A court on Thursday ordered the head of the Sumiyoshi-kai crime syndicate to pay damages over money transfer scams committed by a fraud group formed by an affiliated gang member.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Apr 20, 2019
NHK docudrama reveals telephone scam tactics
Thai police last month raided a residence in Pattaya where an alleged telephone swindling operation was taking place. They discovered 15 Japanese nationals suspected of calling retired people in Japan and fooling them into purchasing electronic money. Japanese police say they will arrest the suspects after they are deported.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Entertainment news
Apr 16, 2019
Actress Lori Loughlin pleads not guilty in college admissions bribe scam
Actress Lori Loughlin said on Monday she will plead not guilty to charges that she participated in what prosecutors say was the largest college admissions scandal uncovered in U.S. history.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Mar 30, 2019
When apo-den telephone scams take deadly turns
On Feb. 28, the body of Kuniko Kato, 80, was found in her ransacked apartment in Tokyo's Koto Ward. Her wrists had been bound with clear plastic wrap and her mouth and ankles bound with duct tape. While the specific cause of death has not been made public, she appeared to have suffocated. A police search of the crime scene turned up some ¥1.3 million in a bookshelf and about ¥200,000 in a billfold. A metal strongbox tucked into a closet did not appear to have been disturbed.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Feb 21, 2019
Damages from 'it's me' and other petty fraud scams in Japan down for fourth straight year
Victims who were age 65 or older stood at 78.0 percent, underscoring the need to focus on senior citizens in taking preventive measures.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Mar 8, 2018
Japan's juvenile crime at postwar record low, but rising marijuana use concerns police agency
The number of teens implicated in cases involving marijuana increased by more than fivefold between 2013 and 2017, the National Police Agency said, raising concern that use of the drug is spreading among juveniles.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Jan 18, 2018
84-year-old woman swindled out of ¥70 million in nursing home scam
An 84-year-old woman in Tokyo has been swindled out of around ¥70 million ($632,000) after she was told to send money to avoid problems related to a nursing home establishment, police said Wednesday.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Oct 7, 2017
Is the response to scams criminally slow?
One of the more cynical dictums in Japanese goes "Shōjikimono ga baka o miru" ("Honesty doesn't pay"). In pre-modern times, neither did crime. The Osadamegaki Hyakkajo — the criminal code enforced by the Tokugawa rulers — prescribed an extensive list of severe punishments for those found guilty of fraud and trickery.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jul 1, 2017
Keep your eyes and ears open, and hands inside your pockets
It's a fake world. Alternatively: All the world's a stage.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jun 6, 2015
'Bottakuri' scams put the squeeze on the unwary
"On any given evening, you can see noisy quarrels between club staff and customers outside the local police box," attorney Katsuyuki Aoshima tells Asahi Geino (May 2), adding, "The police treat these as civil claims between the shop and the customer, and won't get involved, adopting the position of neutral mediators. The club staff know this, and refuse to back down from demanding the full amount. In an overwhelming number of cases, the customers are worn down by their opponents' persistence and wind up paying."
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Dec 22, 2014
'Furikome' transfer scam crackdown yielding results in Kyushu
In a joint effort to fight rampant "furikome" bank transfer scams targeting elderly people, the police, financial institutions and the Finance Ministry's branch in Fukuoka Prefecture have launched a system in which institutions alert the police each time a person aged 65 or older asks to make a withdrawal of more than ¥5 million.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Nov 15, 2014
Creative crooks stay one step ahead
The "Ore, ore" ("It's me") fraudsters and their ilk, who telephone elderly people and pretend to be a relative in need of money to help them out of a jam, keep coming up with new scams.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Nov 12, 2014
'Jokyo' scam is swindlers' latest ruse as 'ore-ore' fraud hits new record
Cases of fraud involving swindlers pretending to be relatives of victims continue to rise, with the amount of money defrauded topping a record ¥40 billion in the nine-month period through the end of September, police said.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Aug 27, 2014
Police say rumors of foreign looters in Hiroshima unfounded
The Hiroshima Prefectural Police said Wednesday they had no information to substantiate online rumors that foreigners were burglarizing houses in areas of the city hit hardest by last week's deadly mudslides.

Longform

Later this month, author Shogo Imamura will open Honmaru, a bookstore that allows other businesses to rent its shelves. It's part of a wave of ideas Japanese booksellers are trying to compete with online spaces.
The story isn't over for Japan's bookstores