Beginning in September, Yasuaki Sameshima, 32, Yosuke Itose, 30, and two accomplices allegedly swindled a man living in Shimane Prefecture, aged in his 60s, out of a total of 2.5 million yen in cash by falsely claiming to provide winning numbers for the Loto 6 drawing.
In carrying out the ruse, the victim was told via email that the group had a high rate of success in picking numbers in the past. The man then paid money, initially 500,000 yen, for links that were purported to contain the numbers, the Senju Police Station said.
The four suspects are believed to be members of a fraud ring that swindled more than 100 persons out of at least 300 million yen since July of last year.
