FUKUOKA (TR) – Fukuoka Prefectural Police have arrested a 17-year-old Taiwanese high school girl on suspicion of concealing criminal proceeds after she allegedly hid 6 million yen in defrauded cash inside a convenience store restroom.
On April 15, the teen allegedly conspired with unnamed accomplices to swindle 6 million yen from an 83-year-old woman in the prefecture using a “fake police officer” phone scam.
According to the Tagawa Police Station, the girl received orders from a handler to collect the cash. She then boarded a Shinkansen to Saitama Prefecture and stashed the envelope containing the money inside the women’s restroom of a convenience store in Toda City.
Upon her arrest for violating the Organized Crime Punishment Act for concealing proceeds from a crime on Tuesday, the suspect, who has no fixed address in Japan, admitted to hiding the cash but denied criminal intent. “I didn’t think it was a scam,” she told investigators.
The teen arrived in Japan in late March on a short-term visitor visa. Investigators are now probing the case as a potential “hit-and-away” operation — a tactic where foreign operatives enter the country on tourist visas, quickly execute crimes on behalf of fraud rings and flee back overseas.
The arrest of the girl is the second by Fukuoka police in this case. She was initially arrested by Fukuoka police on fraud charges on May 8.
