Four people connected with the Yamaguchi-gumi, the nation's largest underworld syndicate, defrauded Bank of Yokohama out of about 45 million yen in housing loans using a homeless man's personal data in 2003, police said Wednesday.
The Metropolitan Police Department arrested former senior Yamaguchi-gumi member Masahiro Moriuchi, 46, part-time deliveryman Seiichi Kamada, 47, and two others on suspicion of fraud. Police obtained arrest warrants for two other senior mobsters and are looking for them.
More than 100 similar fraud cases have been reported in Tokyo and Kanagawa Prefecture over the past three years, with the amount of damage totaling about 5 billion yen.
According to the police investigation, Moriuchi and his accomplices used the homeless man's name when they applied for a housing loan in late March 2003 at a Bank of Yokohama branch in Kanazawa Ward, bilking the institution out of about 45 million yen in April 2003.