Japan police to launch new unit for tackling scams targeting elderly

From Kyodo

July 15 2023

TOKYO – Japanese police plan to launch a new unit based in the Tokyo metropolitan area next spring to investigate the rising number of scams nationwide that often target the elderly, with the new team to involve police officers from across the country, officials said Saturday.

The envisioned unit is expected to have more members and a larger role than an existing team that was established in 2005 to tackle so-called special fraud cases, covering scams such as the swindling of elderly people by impersonating their children and asking for urgent money transfers over the phone.

The existing team’s role has been limited to the initial stages of police investigations, such as checking security camera footage of automated teller machines. But the new organization will be in charge of most of the investigatory process, including establishing which criminal groups are involved in criminal cases.

In 2022, losses stemming from special fraud in Japan reached 37 billion yen ($267 million), rising for the first time in eight years and underscoring the need to bolster efforts to crack down on such crimes.

Special fraud is often committed systematically by criminal groups, usually consisting of their leaders, “callers,” who make phone calls to defraud a victim, and “drawers,” who withdraw money from ATMs to receive the swindled money, among other members.

Many of the groups committing such fraud operate in the Tokyo area, while their victims are scattered nationwide.

The scam investigation team currently in operation has led to inquiries being conducted more efficiently, as it is based in the metropolitan area. Without them, investigators would have to be dispatched from prefectural police departments every time a potential special fraud case was detected.

According to the National Police Agency, the team was initially made up of 43 members, with one officer each dispatched from 43 prefectural police departments nationwide, and was located in Tokyo’s Metropolitan Police Department.

Last year, the team’s numbers increased to 53, with its members deployed to Tokyo and three other prefectures in the vicinity — Saitama, Chiba and Kanagawa.