TOKYO (TR) – Tokyo Metropolitan Police have arrested a group of seven men and women, including a Chinese national, on suspicion of laundering illicit profits obtained from fraud victims in the United States, reports TV Asahi (July 2).
Lin Jun, a 44-year-old Chinese national, and six accomplices are accused of conspiring in 2023 to launder approximately 28 million yen that was wired into Japanese bank accounts by American victims of a specialized fraud scheme.
Police have declined to disclose whether the suspects have admitted to or denied the allegations.
According to police, Lin acted as the mastermind of the laundering ring. To conceal the true nature of the massive international wire transfers, Lin allegedly provided false explanations to financial institutions, claiming the funds were “payments received for the export of precision machinery.”
Police suspect the syndicate was operating on a massive scale. Multiple bank accounts controlled by the group received a staggering 200 million yen over a span of just six months. Investigators are currently probing the group’s broader network to trace the origins of the remaining funds.
