THE ASAHI SHIMBUN
April 7, 2023 at 15:10 JST
A central area of Sihanoukville in Cambodia in 2020 (Asahi Shimbun file photo)
Tokyo police will arrest 19 Japanese men currently in Cambodia over suspected involvement in a fraud scheme targeting Japanese nationals, sources close to the investigation said.
Investigators suspect that the men made phone calls from Cambodia to victims falsely claiming they have unpaid charges in an electronic money transfer scheme.
Local authorities took the suspects, who are in their 20s through 50s, into custody at a hotel room in the southern port city of Sihanoukville in late January.
Tokyo’s Metropolitan Police Department, which has obtained arrest warrants, plan to arrest them after they are transported to Japan.
The 19 men face arrests on suspicion of defrauding a woman in her 60s, who lives in Tokyo, of about 250,000 yen ($1,900) in electronic money called BitCash in late January, the sources said.
The suspects allegedly told the victim that she had charges for a paid website in arrears.
The Japanese Embassy in Cambodia was tipped off that a hotel in the country was being used as a base for a fraud ring and relayed the information to local authorities.
Cambodian authorities seized cellphones, as well as notes with names and contacts of potential victims, from the hotel room where the suspects were found.
The MPD dispatched investigators to Cambodia, received items confiscated by local authorities and interviewed the victim in Japan.
A Japanese group working out of the Philippines allegedly defrauded victims of 6 billion yen through a similar scheme. Ring leaders were arrested in February after they were transported to Japan.
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