Photo/Illutration Police believe the scams operated from a room in this apartment building in Tokyo’s Taito Ward. (Arata Mitsui)

The Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department on July 17 arrested six suspected fraudsters who lured victims on social media by promising phony investments, investigative sources said.

A burgeoning number of people in Japan are falling victim to scams on social media, drawn by promises of high returns. This is the first time an entire group of scammers has been swept up, according to the National Police Agency.

However, investigative sources note that the mostly Chinese suspects may have worked with ringleaders overseas.

“In some cases, messages were sent using incorrect Japanese,” a senior investigator said. “They may have used a translation application. It is possible that a large organization outsourced the work to the suspects based in Japan.”

Online scams are a problem of the digital age. The agency received 3,049 reports of social media-related investment fraud between January and May of this year, with total losses of 43.02 billion yen ($272 million).

The people arrested include Chinese national Li Yuchen, 34, who lives in Tokyo’s Taito Ward. Li was arrested on suspicion of fraud and has been charged separately under the Stimulants Control Law.

The other people arrested were earlier identified as Yumiko Takano, 57, and her daughter Masami, 37, who were both naturalized as Japanese citizens in 2002.

Zhang Yanbo, a 38-year-old Chinese national, and two others complete the list. Four of the six are Chinese nationals.

Five of the six people, including Takano, were previously arrested in June on suspicion of fraud. They are suspected of using the Line messaging app to contact three people, including a man in his 60s living in Ibaraki Prefecture, after which they swindled the victims to a tune of 25.5 million yen. The contacts took place from January to May last year.

Li was not arrested previously. Police believe that Li, Takano and Zhang were the group’s local leaders.

The arrests on July 17 relate to an earlier plot with similar features. Investigative sources say the six conspired with others to contact four victims, including a man in his 50s from Nara Prefecture, via Line, between November 2022 and September 2023. The victims lost about 80 million yen.

The scammers used a room in a residential building in the Ueno shopping district of Tokyo’s Taito Ward, the sources said. The room was on the seventh floor of a nine-story apartment building.

A resident, a Chinese man who has lived in the building for less than two years, said the building accepts foreigners. Many Chinese live there, he said.

“I don't know what kind of people live in the other rooms,” he said. “I had no idea it was a base for a criminal group.”

According to the sources, the six met at a restaurant in Japan owned by Takano.

They came under suspicion when cash was withdrawn from ATMs and financial institutions. Investigators used security camera images and other evidence.

However, other players may be based overseas. Police said the six contacted someone on the Chinese WeChat instant messaging site and received instructions to withdraw cash from a designated account.

Police believe that the fraudsters were operating for a larger organization consisting mainly of Chinese nationals overseas.

Police also said the individuals were involved in fraud between September 2022 and September 2023, in which 14 people from nine prefectures were defrauded of more than 500 million yen.

The victims in all cases had one thing in common: They were suddenly invited to a Line group with an alluring name, such as “investment study group.”

Typically, more than 100 people would join the Line group, where an account that purported to be the group’s instructor urged them to invest in. 

Positive messages appeared from other users.

“I did as the instructor said and it paid off,” was the type of supportive note posted by accounts that police now believe were shills, probably based overseas.

Police are now trying to determine the full scope of the fraud group.

(This article was written by Tabito Fukutomi and Arata Mitsui.)

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