TOKYO (TR) – Six men were arrested for allegedly swindling 78 million yen from a woman in a nursing home scam targeting the elderly, reports the Sankei Shimbun (Sept. 7).
Tokyo Metropolitan Police arrested Daiki Horii, 27, and his accomplices for allegedly making the victim, a 66-year-old executive at a real estate company in Saitama Prefecture, forfeit 78 million yen in cash after falsely claiming she committed a crime.
Some of the fraudulently obtained money may now be in the hands of criminal syndicates, police said.
One suspect called the woman, who lives alone, and asked her if she would be willing to lend the use of her right to move into an elderly nursing home, police said.
After she agreed, an accomplice told her that lending one’s name is a crime. “Normally all of your assets would be confiscated, but everything will be fine if you deposit cash,” the accomplice claimed.
The suspects forced the woman to make dozens of cash withdrawals and obtained the cash through motorcycle courier services and other means, police said.
The six-member gang, believed by police to be led by Horii, was involved in running remittance scams in which they would deceive elderly citizens.
Dozens of similar scams involving rest homes that targeted the elderly person with damages totaling some 350 million yen have been reported nationwide, according to the Organized Crime Control Bureau of Tokyo Metropolitan Police.
