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Tokyo police apprehend man over ¥1 million swindle of elderly woman

Ryosuke Tamura
Surveillance camera footage showing a person believed to be Ryosuke Tamura (Twitter)

TOKYO (TR) – After an appeal to the public earlier this year in seeking the whereabouts of the perpetrator behind the swindling of a elderly woman, Tokyo Metropolitan Police on Tuesday announced the apprehension of the suspect, reports Nippon News Network (July 3).

In December, the woman, a 71-year-old resident of Tokyo’s Kita Ward, received a telephone call from a person claiming to be a police officer who falsely claimed that her bank cards were being used to commit fraud, according to police.

The suspect, later identified as Ryosukue Tamura, 25, then collected two bank cards from the woman and proceeded to withdraw 650,000 yen in cash from her account at an ATM of a financial institution. The following day, he withdrew another 500,000 yen from a convenience store ATM.

Images released by police in February showed the suspect wearing a suit at one of the ATMs. He was also carrying a bag and a smartphone.

Officers working off a tip from the public later apprehended Tamura on suspicion of fraud. He partially denies the allegations, police said.

Beginning in December, the suspect is believed to have used similar methods in the swindling of other persons in Chiba Prefecture and Tokyo out of about 3.85 million yen.

200 million yen

Also on Tuesday, Tokyo police announced the arrest of a suspected member of a fraud ring based outside of the capital that has swindled about 200 million yen from victims utilizing a similar ruse.

Between January and February, a woman in her 60s living in Tama City, Tokyo was told on the telephone by a person falsely claiming to be from a consumer affairs center that she must make a bail payment in order to avoid an unspecified type of litigation.

Hiroto Morimitsu
Hiroto Morimitsu
Hiroto Morimitsu later retrieved 2 million yen in cash from the woman. The suspect, who has been accused of fraud, admits to the allegations, according to the Tsukiji Police Station.

The operation is based in Chiba Prefecture. In order to evade a bust, the ring moved its headquarters from location to location within the prefecture, police said.

The ring is believed to have swindled victims, primarily the elderly, out of about 200 million yen. Morimitsu, likely responsible for about 90 million yen that amount, surfaced as a suspect after the arrest of another member of the ring in April, police said.