TOKYO (TR) – Tokyo Metropolitan Police have arrested a 39-year-old member of a criminal syndicate who is suspected of recruiting persons for a fraud ring, reports TV Asahi (July 19).
Last November, Ryota Kojima, a 39-year-old member of the Inagawa-kai, is alleged to have worked with the ring in defrauding a 73-year-old woman living in the capital out of 1.5 million yen in cash.
In carrying out the scam, Kojima supplied the ring with a boy, then 17, who posed as the son of the woman in collecting the cash.
Kojima, who has been accused of fraud, denies the allegations. “I do not recall [the matter],” the suspect was quoted by police. One other person has been arrested in the case.
Kojima is believed to have supplied a similar service to the ring in an additional 10 cases in which the damage totaled around 20 million yen.