TOKYO (TR) – Tokyo Metropolitan Police have arrested a man sought in the swindle an elderly woman out of 1 million yen in Higashikurume City last month, reports Nippon News Network (May 25).
On April 18, the woman was told on the telephone by a person claiming to be an employee of the Higashi Kurume City government office that she was eligible for a medical expense refund. During the conversation, the called obtained information about her credit union account.
In a separate phone call at some point later, the woman was informed by a person posing an employee of the credit union that her card needed to be replaced.
Thereafter, the suspect, later identified as Mitsuhisa Takatori, 31, arrived at her residence and collected one card. A total of 500,000 yen in cash was then pulled from her account at a convenience store ATM machine, according to police.
Last month, images released publicly by police showed the suspect wearing a suit, white shirt and glasses while carrying a black bag. Based on a subsequent tip, police determined he is Takatori earlier this month.
On Wednesday, Gunma Prefectural Police first arrested Takatori over the alleged swindle of two bank cards from an 82-year-old woman in Maebashi City.
Takatori is suspected in four other cases, police said.
1.9 million names and phone numbers
On May 21, police in Kanagawa Prefecture raided a suspected headquarters of another fraud ring in Yokohama’s Tsurumi Ward that also targeted elderly victims.
In addition to arresting 25-year-old Chihiro Ota over the alleged attempted fraud of an elderly man in Shizuoka Prefecture, police seized copies of yearbooks from high schools in 41 administrative districts nationwide, including Hokkaido and Osaka prefectures. The yearbooks included about 1.9 million names and phone numbers.
Ota was sent to prosecutors on Friday morning.