AICHI (TR) – Nearly 30 male high school students in Nagoya allegedly posed as girls on a dating app to fraudulently obtain electronic money, reports Sankei Sports (Nov. 18).
Officials of the private high school in the city found that 26 second-year students posed as school girls on a smartphone dating app since summer vacation.
The students fraudulently obtained between 1,000 yen and 5,000 yen worth of e-money from users of the app and used the funds to buy gift cards from online retailer Amazon.co.jp, which they used to purchase club activity gear.
Some students bagged as much as 25,000 yen worth of e-money, said officials discussing the incident with Aichi Prefectural Police.
“We’re hoping to teach proper SNS usage”
The students solicited e-money from an unknown number of men for a chance to meet the girls the students were fraudulently posing as, school officials said.
“We’re hoping to teach proper usage of social-networking services,” a school official said.
The scheme came to light after a parent contacted the school, leading to an inquiry. Some of the students subsequently admitted they learned how the scheme works and ended up doing it just for amusement.
