Japan(Tokyo) Tokyo police have arrested 10 Japanese on suspicion of running a phone scam targeting people in the country. The suspects are members of an alleged fraud group based in the Philippines and had been detained there for 20 months due to coronavirus pandemic.
The 10 suspects, including 27-year-old Omata Kenta, were arrested on Thursday after arriving at Narita Airport, just outside Tokyo.
They were taken to a police station by car after being tested for the coronavirus.
Tokyo police say the suspects are thought to have made a scam phone call from the Philippines to a woman in her 60s in Tokyo in 2019, pretending to be a police officer. The group then allegedly stole five cash cards by sending another member in Japan to her home.
In November 2019, Philippine authorities raided a building in the capital Manila, where the group had allegedly been running the phone scam, and took 36 Japanese into an immigration detention facility.
Eighteen of them were transported to Japan in February last year, many of whom have already been convicted. Authorities plan to send the remaining eight members to Japan for further investigation.
Investigative sources say the members of the group worked on two floors of the building where they were based, and competed with one another to see who could defraud the most.
The sources say the members stole victims’ cash cards by telling them over the phone that their names were on a list held by arrested fraud suspects. The group would then send to their homes other members in Japan posing as finance ministry officials.
Investigators believe the members not only received part of the money they swindled as a reward, but also got prize money and vouchers for accommodation at resorts based on their “achievements.”
Tokyo police say that in 2019, authorities nationwide identified more than 2,000 phone scam cases involving people posing as police officers or finance ministry officials. They say that the amount scammed has reached more than 30 million dollars.
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