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Mike · Site Admin Joined: 07 Sep 2004 Posts: 4512 Location:

A crackdown on Tokyo's train perverts has had the unwanted side-effect of opening up dozens of mostly old-age pensioners to con artists preying on them for their money, the Mainichi has learned.

During the May hunt for men molesting women or using hidden cameras to take photos up their skirts, other shysters were pretending to be law enforcers and calling people to tell them to pay money to free a relative suspected of being a train pervert.

Many of those called paid up the amounts demanded, which often ran into the millions of yen.

"This is a scam evolved from the spirit of the times," a Metropolitan Police Department railway police spokesman says. "Be careful not to fall for this trick."

Police, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government and railway officials started a campaigning targeting molesters and sneak shot photographers on May 9 to coincide with the introduction of women's only carriages on most trains serving Tokyo during the morning peak period.

But the con artists started working at the same time. Normally, they would call and pretend to be somebody from the railway police. The con artist would then claim that a male family member had been arrested for molestation or indecent assault.

They would give an amount running into the millions of yen and say that payment of this sum as hush money into a designated bank account would allow the relative to go free. Other times, the caller pretended to be the relative's lawyer or a prosecutor and the money demanded was referred to as "bail."

Only 86 people were arrested for molestation or indecent assault in the crackdown on train perverts that authorities conducted in Tokyo from May 9 to May 20.

Yet, sometimes as many as 10 callers a day have contacted the railway police since mid-May saying that they had received a phone call telling them a relative had been arrested for perversion and wanting to confirm the details.

Many of the callers had already transferred money as the con artist had instructed them to.

Most of those who have fallen for the scam have been the elderly. Some of the cases include:

* A 63-year-old Saitama pensioner who received a phone call from a man claiming to be a railway police officer who had just arrested her husband for groping a woman train passenger. The so-called officer told the woman she could hush up the case with a 2 million yen payment. The woman transferred the money into an account the officer had instructed her to. She realized she had been duped when she called the real railway police to check whether the funds had gone through only for the police to have no idea what she was talking about.

* A 79-year-old man from Matsudo, Chiba Prefecture, paid an identical sum after he received a call saying that his son had been arrested for molesting. Soon after he sent the money, the old man got through to his son and discovered that he had been swindled.

* A 62-year-old woman in Tokyo's Suginami-ku had a lucky escape when she received a call from a man claiming to be a lawyer who wanted 3 million yen in cash to use to pay as a settlement that would guarantee her husband would be freed after his arrest for groping. When the woman told the caller that she wanted to consult with a family lawyer, the caller abruptly hung up.

National Police Agency figures show that 14,874 arrests for fraud were made in Japan last year. About 90 percent of these arrests involved either faked car accident settlements, repayments to loansharks, demands for ransom or insistence on payment for an abortion. There were almost no demands to hush up arrests for groping commuters. (By Tsukimi Goda, Mainichi)
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Hewer · Centurion Joined: 30 Sep 2004 Posts: 545 Location:

This kind of scam is referred to in the papers here as a "Hello it's me" scam. In another variation, callers phone up elderly people claiming to be a relative in trouble with loan sharks and that they need some money fast.

Shocking really. Japan is a rich hunting ground for con-artists because the people are so trusting by nature.

Confused