TOKYO (TR) – Tokyo Metropolitan Police have arrested three suspects, including two male and female Chinese nationals, over their alleged involvement in a fraud ring in which individuals posed as police officers.
The ring was based in Cambodia and defrauded victims in Japan out of approximately 5 billion yen over a six-month period, police said.
Some of the proceeds from the scam wound up being laundered with real estate, police said, reports the Asahi Shimbun (Oct. 18).
Police have accused Chinese nationals Qian Ling, a 38-year-old company employee, and Lu Lu, 36, and Shohei Miyashiro, 31, of violating the Organized Crime Punishment Act.
The ring specialized in a scam referred to as tokushu sagi, meaning specialized fraud. Perpetrators of this crime target a victim over the telephone and impersonate an authority figure or relative to defraud money from them.
The callers posed as police officers. They said things like, “Your account has been fraudulently used, and you are under suspicion of a crime. We need to transfer some cash for investigation.”
Criminal syndicates
Police estimate that the group was involved in approximately 500 special fraud cases in the six months leading up to January. The amount lost totals approximately 5 billion yen.
Police believe that Chinese and Japanese criminal syndicates were collaborating. Qian is believed to have ties to Chinese criminal organizations. Meanwhile, there is also suspicion that members of the Sumiyoshi-kai yakuza syndicate were involved in recruiting callers to pose as police officers on the telephone.
They further believe Miyashiro managed the callers. Meanwhile, Lu was the person who gave the instructions for transferring the stolen money.
According to police, Qian and his accomplices opened a base in Cambodia using funds raised from investors. They began operating there around 2023. It is believed that the fraudulent funds were used to reward the callers, who at one time numbered around 30. Profits were also redistributed to investors.
Criminal syndicates
The arrests of Qian and Miyashiro are their second in the case. For Lu, it was her first.
In summarizing the charges, the trio allegedly orchestrated the making of false phone calls to three men and women in Japan in 2023, in swindling them out of around 36 million yen.
Lu instructed her members to use the cash the group had defrauded to make deposits to real estate companies on behalf of Chinese people wishing to purchase real estate in Japan.
In one case, Lu allegedly concealed 10 million yen in defrauded funds by transferring it to a real estate agent as part of a deposit for the purchase of a luxury condominium in Minato Ward.
That amount was part of 32 million yen swindled from an elderly man in Okinawa Prefecture between October and November of last year.
Qian and Miyashiro allegedly swindled the other roughly 4 million yen from a man in his 60s from Miyagi Prefecture (2.9 million yen) and a woman in Shizuoka Prefecture (1 million yen in crypto assets).
Criminal syndicates
According to TV Asahi (Oct. 22), officials in Cambodia extradited a total of 29 men and women aged between 19 and 52 to Japan in August. They were later accused of violating the Organized Crime Punishment Act.
According to police, the 29 suspects allegedly conspired to call a 61-year-old woman living in Aichi Prefecture in May and pretending to be police officers. She was subsequently defrauded out of a total of 2 million yen in cash.
Subsequent investigations have revealed that the Cambodian base was also home to numerous fraud groups from China and other Asian countries. It was further revealed that the base housed around 1,000 people.
