Twenty-five Japanese men were extradited from Cambodia on Wednesday and arrested by Japanese police after a phone scam operation they allegedly conducted resulted in damages of at least hundreds of millions of yen, investigative sources have said.
On Tuesday morning, a joint task force of around 30 investigators from several Japanese prefectural police authorities was dispatched to Phnom Penh International Airport in Cambodia to help with the transfer of the suspects.
According to investigative sources, the suspects, between the ages of 20 and 42, made fraudulent phone calls from Cambodia posing as nursing home staff and lawyers, aiming to scam victims in Japan. They ran their operation out of an apartment in Phnom Penh, which is believed to have been their base. TV Asahi reported that 16 of the suspects are in their 20s.