TOKYO (TR) – Tokyo Metropolitan Police have arrested a 27-year-old man who joined a fraud ring after he couldn’t find work amid the novel coronavirus pandemic, reports Fuji News Network (July 29).
In May, Naoya Kurahashi allegedly worked with accomplices in the ring to defraud a woman man in her 70s living in Bunkyo Ward out of six bank cards.
The cards were then used to withdraw 2.7 million yen from her accounts, police said.
“Due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, I couldn’t find work,” Kurahashi was quoted by police. “Since April, I did this about 20 times, collecting around 20 million yen.”
According to police, Kurahashi did security-related work in January. Several months later, he answered an advertisement posted on the internet for “underground work.”
On Thursday, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government said that the number of new coronavirus cases totaled 367, the most on record for a single day.
