OKAYAMA (TR) – Okayama Prefectural Police have arrested a senior member of a yakuza syndicate and an accomplice for allegedly trafficking a woman to Cambodia to force her to work in an international telephone fraud ring, reports the Asahi Shimbun (June 4).
Naoomi Kono, a 52-year-old executive in the Ikeda-gumi, and his unemployed acquaintance Mao Kurashiki, 27, are accused of kidnapping and transferring the Okayama woman, aged in her 20s, across international borders. Kurashiki was reportedly an acquaintance of the victim.
Between late September and early October, the pair, along with unidentified co-conspirators, allegedly lured the woman with lucrative, false promises.
“There is a job teaching Japanese in Cambodia,” they told her, according to police. “You can earn 3 million yen in three months, and you can just come home after that.”
In late October, the suspects drove the victim to Kansai International Airport and placed her on a flight to Cambodia. Police revealed that another unidentified individual was on the plane specifically to monitor her during the journey.
Police have withheld whether Konoo and Kurashiki have admitted to the allegations.
“Forced to work”
The woman wound up at a base for a tokushu sagi ring. In such an operation, members pose on the telephone as police officers or other persons in authority to swindle victims.
The ordeal came to an end on February 6 of this year, when the desperate woman managed to contact the Okayama West Police Station from Cambodia.
“I am being forced to work as a scam caller. I want to go home,” she pleaded over the phone.
Acting on police instructions, the woman fled to the Japanese Embassy in Cambodia to seek refuge. She was placed under protection and safely repatriated to Japan later that month.
Investigators believe the kidnapping was orchestrated by a tokuryu syndicate, whose members give and receive orders anonymously via smartphone apps. Police are currently hunting for further accomplices involved in the trafficking and overseas scam operations.
