KYOTO (TR) – A Kyoto Prefectural Police sergeant last week unknowingly assisted a fraudster in the fleecing of a Kyoto City man, it has been learned, reports TV Asahi (Nov. 17).
On November 12, the victim, aged in his 50s and living in Yamashina Ward, received a phone call from a man claiming to be from a telecommunications company. During the conversation, the caller lied about the victim’s unpaid cloud service fees.
The man tried to make a transfer as directed by the fraudster, but an employee from the financial institution used to make the transaction pointed out the possibility of a scam. So they alerted a police station instead.
The police sergeant at the Yamashina Police Station, aged in his 30s, responded to the call and spoke directly to the fraudster. However, the sergeant determined that there were no contradictions in the content of the request.
In the end, the man was defrauded out of a total of approximately 800,000 yen.
A representative of the Yamashina Police Station said, “It is unfortunate that the police officers were unable to detect the scam and allowed damage to occur. We will thoroughly instruct our officers [to prevent a recurrence].”
