Overview
- Tokyo’s International Crime Unit announced the arrest of alleged top operator Munemasa Takahashi and six others, accusing the group of involvement in about 500 incidents totaling roughly ¥2.2 billion since February 2023 across the Greater Tokyo area.
- In one cited case from November 2024, an 80s woman in Niiza, Saitama, was called by someone posing as a Banking Association employee, had four cash cards taken, and about ¥4 million was withdrawn.
- Police say a February 2023 stop in Tokyo’s Nishiarai found two Vietnamese men carrying 18 Japanese-name cash cards, leading to 29 arrests of alleged runners and collectors and, through app-message analysis, the identification of the suspected leader.
- Investigators are examining whether some of the proceeds were funneled to yakuza groups, a line of inquiry that remains under investigation.
- Separately, the Special Investigation Division arrested Kenichi Sakurai and Akira Saotome over a June fraud in Yokohama involving ¥1 million from a man in his 90s, alleging Saotome acted as a cash pickup and Sakurai as his superior in a subgroup that took about ¥190 million from roughly 90 victims between April and July.