TOKYO (TR) – Tokyo Metropolitan Police have arrested a lawyer from Kanagawa Prefecture who is suspected of being responsible for closing frozen bank accounts used by a fraud ring.
According to police, Yasuaki Takada, a 47-year-old lawyer from Yokohama City, is a suspected member of the ring, which has swindled more than 5 billion yen from thousands of persons nationwide, reports the Yomiuri Shimbun (Mar. 24).
Between September and December 2023, Takada and Kazuki Suzuki, 50, are suspected of submitting forged documents to a credit union in Kanagawa Prefecture to close frozen accounts in the name of a music school operating company into which defrauded funds had been deposited.
The pair claimed that the funds were student lesson fees. They then allegedly closed the account and defrauded the bank out of approximately 580,000 yen.
According to police, Suzuki is believed to have created the forged documents, while Takada went to the credit union’s counter to close more than 30 other frozen accounts.
Takada is believed to have been part of a fraud group that operated fictitious side-job websites. Takada allegedly handled complaints from site users, granting partial refunds while also urging users not to report the incidents to the police.
Police believe Takada received approximately 1 million yen per month from the fraud ring.
The bank accounts in question were used to receive site usage fees and were frozen by the credit union in September 2023.
Approximately 90 people have been arrested in total. Since 2023, the group swindled nearly 5.3 billion yen from approximately 10,000 people nationwide under the guise of website usage fees.
Takada registered as a lawyer in 2011. He operates a law firm in Chiyoda Ward. Last March, he received a six-month suspension from the Tokyo Bar Association for publishing exaggerated advertisements regarding the recovery of money lost in romance scams.
