The Metropolitan Police Department said Friday they had served a new warrant for the arrest of a man over unauthorized access to the social media accounts of celebrities including a member of Japanese comedy duo Einstein.
The suspect, Tomonari Kubo, 32, allegedly entered usernames and passwords and logged in to the Instagram accounts of Naoki Inada, 40, a comedian, and a professional sports player without permission between July and October 2024.
Kubo is believed to have logged in to the account of Inada 16 times and that of the sports player once during the period.
According to the cybercrime division of the Tokyo police, Kubo apparently guessed their passwords from publicly available information such as their dates of birth.
A video streamer last year posted on social media a comment from a woman that Inada asked her in an Instagram direct message to send sexual images.
Inada denied his involvement. He consulted the police in August that year.
The division suspects Kubo may have been involved in the incident because it happened during the period in which the unauthorized logins took place.
Kubo had been arrested three times by the Tokyo police and then indicted over alleged unauthorized access to the social media accounts of four people, including an actor and a professional sports instructor, between October 2023 and November 2024.
With your current subscription plan you can comment on stories. However, before writing your first comment, please create a display name in the Profile section of your subscriber account page.