Police in Kanagawa and Yamanashi prefectures have arrested six Japanese men on suspicion of fraud over a scam operation run from Vietnam, the two forces announced on the 29th. They did not disclose whether the men admit or deny the allegations.
The six are in their 20s to 50s and their addresses are unknown. Police believe they traveled from Japan to Vietnam via Cambodia and worked as "kakeko" — the callers who pose as police or officials to talk victims into transferring money — at a base in the country.
According to the Kanagawa prefectural police's organized crime investigation division, the men are accused of defrauding a woman in her 20s in Yamaguchi Prefecture on May 22. In a video call, they posed as police officers and told her she needed to verify her assets, and had her transfer 1 million yen to a designated account.
A walk-in at the embassy in Hanoi
Vietnamese authorities raided the base in Bac Ninh Province, now Bac Ninh City, in the north of the country in June and detained the six men.
A few days before that raid, another Japanese who had entered the country from Kanagawa Prefecture went to the Japanese Embassy in Hanoi and asked for help, saying he had been working as a scam caller and had fled the base. Police say his account led to the raid, and that they have questioned him as well.
The base was a five-story building where the men lived and made their fraudulent calls, according to police. Five of them may have had their passports taken from them by superiors.
Police suspect the group defrauded at least 150 people in Japan of more than 500 million yen in total, and are continuing to investigate.