A syndicate affiliated porn site operated a year-long scam in which it swindled over ¥200 million (some $2.2 million), all by simply telling people they owed the site thousands of dollars in unpaid bills.
After investigations by anti-organized crime units, a 41-year-old man, who claims “I don’t know nothing at all!”, along with 4 other suspects, were arrested in Arakawa-ku, Tokyo, on charges of fraud conducted.
All the crimes were conducted via payments in connection with the scamming porn site: from April of 2007, to February of 2008, an estimated sum of ¥200,800,000 was stolen.
Upon investigation, it was discovered the main suspect had contacted a 40-year-old office worker residing in Yamanashi prefecture via his cellphone and delivered the following ultimatum:
“I believe you used our adult web site on December 24th of 2007, and your late fees have accrued to a total of ¥328,000. If you do not pay the late fees by today you will owe a total of ¥600,000!”
The deceived victim then paid the ¥328,000 without question.
This swindle was carried out numerous times with the aid of an acquaintance of the suspect, an adult web site owner, who provided the telephone numbers of customers using the site.
Due to his affiliation with a local crime syndicate, police are currently investigating the possibility that the suspect was also paying a portion of the stolen money to the government.
Via ZakZak.
Japan, it seems, is filled with all sorts of criminal masterminds, and plenty of people gullible enough to fall for their schemes. Much the same as anywhere else, then…
cant they just use their “IMAGINATION” and wack it to that
they could have used that money to get a prostitute from those same yakuza
okay so i got some fertilizer to sell who wants some
Japan Yakuzas = geniuses in swindling
There’s a short story by Roald Dahl, “The Bookseller”, which is quite similar to this newspiece.
The titular bookseller owns a small bookshop, and keeps an eye on newspapers for obituaries. When he finds out someone famous has died, he sends a letter to the widow which basically says “Sorry to bother you after such a painful loss, but your husband owed us some money for some erotic literature we sold him. Forward the money to us, or else we’ll go to court.”
The widow, not wanting to mar the memory of her late husband, pays up.
corruption in Japan…
Damn, they’re doing this over the Internet now. Amazingly, I’m not surprised about it.