Police believe that individuals who were arrested over alleged fraud related to a government COVID-19 relief aid program, including a Tokyo Regional Taxation Bureau official, falsified tax return documents and abused their taxation expertise while taking advantage of young people who were not familiar with the tax system.
Investigative sources said last week that police had arrested nine people including Kohei Tsukamoto, 24, a Tokyo tax bureau official, and Kazusa Nakamura, 24, a former employee of the bureau.
Tsukamoto and Nakamura were childhood friends and started working at the tax bureau in the same year. They formed an alleged fraud group around January 2019 along with Ryusei Nakamine, 27, a former employee of Daiwa Securities, after the two participated in an investment seminar hosted by Nakamine.