Photo/Illutration Japanese suspects initially detained in Cambodia arrive at Chubu Airport in Aichi Prefecture on Aug. 20. (Shigetaka Kodama)

Aichi prefectural police on Aug. 20 arrested 29 Japanese nationals on suspicion of attempting to defraud victims in Japan from a base located in northwestern Cambodia, investigative sources said.

The suspects were arrested on a chartered plane that departed from Cambodia’s capital, Phnom Penh, where they were initially held. They arrived at Chubu Airport in Tokoname, Aichi Prefecture, on the evening of Aug. 20 and were escorted by officers to a local police station.

Police are trying to determine the roles of the suspects in the phone fraud scheme.

The suspects range in age from their teens to their 50s. Three are male teenagers and one is a woman, according to investigative sources.

In late May, Cambodian authorities arrested the suspects on suspicion of making fraudulent phone calls from a base in Poipet and impersonating police officers.

They were apparently targeting residents in Japan’s Kanto region.

The investigation started after a resident of Aichi Prefecture returned to the central Japan prefecture from Cambodia in January and provided information to police.

Investigators quoted him as saying, “Japanese nationals were working as scam callers under the control of Chinese people” in Cambodia while being monitored through surveillance screens.

He said he himself ended up at the base after “applying through a job listing site.”

On Aug. 19, about 80 investigators departed from Chubu Airport for Phnom Penh to arrest the 29 Japanese nationals.

FRAUD BASES MOVED OVERSEAS

In recent years, Japanese nationals have been arrested and repatriated over their suspected involvement in scam bases in Southeast Asia.

In 2019, 36 Japanese were detained by local authorities in the Philippines in connection with their suspected involvement in fraud crimes.

In 2023, 25 individuals were arrested over suspected phone fraud activity in Phnom Penh.
And earlier this year, several Japanese men and teenagers were arrested on suspicion of making scam phone calls from bases in Myanmar.

Japanese investigators believe fraud bases have been transferred overseas to avoid domestic crackdowns. These bases abroad take advantage of law-enforcement confusion and other security lapses due to political instability and domestic conflicts.

Swindles conducted by scammers impersonating police officers have been rising.

Fake police uniforms and other props discovered at the Poipet base were likely used during video calls to deceive the victims and put them at unease, investigators said.

According to the National Police Agency, 4,737 phone fraud cases were identified nationwide from January to June this year, with total losses amounting to 38.93 billion yen ($264 million).

Many of these calls were made from international numbers.

TARGETING THE MASTERMINDS

In fraud cases in Myanmar, several men have been arrested after recruiting scam callers by offering “yamibaito” (dark part-time jobs) online.

In a fraud case at a base in northwestern Cambodia, an intermediary coordinated and gave instructions for overseas travel to Japanese callers.

Aichi prefectural police plan to investigate the overseas travel of the 29 suspects in detail, aiming to identify the higher-level intermediaries and masterminds.

The goal, police said, is to eliminate the entire criminal infrastructure that dispatches scam callers abroad.

“We must not stop at only arresting the front-line scam callers. We need to uncover the entire system that leads to overseas deployment to prevent further expansion of these fraud schemes,” a senior police official said.

(This article was written by Toshinari Takahashi and Yuka Kamagata.)

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