TOKYO (TR) – Tokyo Metropolitan Police have arrested a member of a fraud ring whose members are believed to have swindled more than a dozen victims out of about 90 million dating back to last year, reports TBS News (Sept. 5).
In November of last year, a woman, aged in her 80s and living in Suginami Ward, was falsely told by a person impersonating her grandson on the telephone that he had lost a bag containing a bank check at a railway station.
Raiki Wakanabe, a 21-year-old resident of Nagareyama City, Chiba Prefecture, then fraudulently obtained two bank cards and 1 million yen in cash from the woman.
“I thought that what I was doing might be wrong,” the suspect was quoted by the Nerima Police Station in partially denying the allegations.
Police believe that the ring has fraudulently obtained about 90 million yen in cash from about 20 victims across the capital using similar means since April of last year.
