One of two Chinese men arrested on suspicion of attempted fraud paid ¥730,000 for 146 cartons of electronic cigarette cartridges at a Tokyo convenience store using stolen IDs for the new smartphone payment service 7pay, police said Friday.
The police believe an international criminal group, possibly based in China, was behind the operation. They believe the group has been involved in mass-scale ID thefts and online fraud crossing national borders.
Zhang Sheng, 22, and Wang Yunfei, 25, are suspected of using the ID of a man in his 40s in an attempt to purchase 40 of the 146 cartons, worth ¥200,000. They were sent to prosecutors on Friday.