TOKYO (TR) – Tokyo Metropolitan Police have arrested a suspected member of a fraud ring that ordered an elderly woman to stay at a hotel while money was fraudulently withdrawn from her accounts, reports the Yomiuri Shimbun (Jan. 12).
Thus far, police have accused Shota Yamano, 25, of no known occupation, of using bank cards obtained from a 79-year-old woman living in Shinjuku Ward to withdraw 6 million yen in cash from convenience store ATMs in Yashio City, Saitama Prefecture.
Yamano, who has been accused of fraud, denies the allegations. “I don’t know [anything about it],” the suspect was quoted by the Shinjuku Police Station.
In October, the woman was told on the telephone by a person falsely claiming to be a police officer that her bank cards were “being used for criminal activity.”
The woman was then instructed by the caller, presumably a member of the ring, to send her 10 bank cards by postal mail to a residence in Nakano Ward. One of those cards was used by Yamano to withdraw the money in Yashio, police said.
The caller also advised the woman to stay in a hotel since her residence was to be searched by police. The woman stayed at a hotel in Chiyoda Ward over over a five-day period. During that time, members of the ring withdrew more than a total of 20 million yen from her accounts using the cards.
