TOKYO (TR) – An 18-year-old girl suspected in dozens of fraud cases carried out the crimes to fund a lavish lifestyle, police said last week, reports TV Asahi (Dec. 4).
In July, the girl posed as a police officer in the alleged theft of bank cards from two elderly women in Shinjuku Ward.
After using an ATM machine to withdraw 4.02 million yen from the accounts of the victims, she handed over the money to a male accomplice in Chiyoda Ward.
“I wanted to make a lot of money over a short period to buy clothes and accessories and have fun on a trip to Korea,” the girl told police upon her arrest.
Beginning in April, the girl is believed to have carried out 50 similar cases known as tokushu sagi (special fraud) in which the amount defrauded from the victims totaled 30 million yen.