Overview

• Yamanashi Prefectural Police reported that losses from phone scams reached about 132 million yen in the first half of the year, doubling compared with the same period last year.
• Police data show 19 incidents of scammers posing as police officers by June, causing around 115 million yen in losses and exceeding last year’s total in both cases and amount.
• Saitama police announced that a 61-year-old doctor in Fujimino City was defrauded of about 3.9 billion yen through an SNS-based investment scam, marking the highest such loss in the prefecture.
• Fukuoka’s Tagawa police published samples of fake arrest warrants and seizure orders used in social media fraud after a woman in her 60s transferred over 11 million yen earlier this month.
• Authorities recorded over 1,300 suspicious calls in Yamanashi by the end of June, with mobile phones surpassing landlines for the first time and highlighting the shift in scammers’ contact methods.