Japanese gang of thieves in Philippines swindled out $3.5 billion

A group of four Japanese men who are currently being held at a Philippine immigration detention center allegedly swindled victims out of some 3.5 billion, according to an investigative source. There were special cases of fraud between 2017 and 2019 and had scammers impersonating police officers and others.

The source said that the four suspected leaders include Yuki Watanabe and Kiyoto Imamura, who has gone by the name Luffy in the past. Watanabe is believed to have directed the fraud operations.

The group is suspected of having co-ordinated a series of robberies across Japan.

The Metropolitan Police Department and 18 other prefectural police forces have arrested about 70 people in connection with the fraud cases. The criminal group recruited members for the fraud via a social network, as they did with the robbery ring, police said.

The police are investigating the link between the four men and the robbery spree.

The group has been based in the Philippines since at least 2017 and instructed Japanese nationals, who they recruited to be callers and had come to the Philippines to make scam calls to elderly people in Japan. The callers told elderly victims that fraud had been detected on their bank accounts, claiming to be police officers, finance bureau officials and others.

The receivers in Japan then visited the victims homes, had them place their cash cards in an envelope, swapped out the envelope, and withdrew cash from ATMs with stolen cards.

In November 2019, the Philippine authorities arrested 36 callers, which were based in an abandoned hotel near Manila. Watanabe and the three others were not among those arrested.

The MPD and the prefectural police forces investigated the receivers and others linked to the cases in Japan, leading to a total of 70 arrests last year, including 36 callers. Approximately 2,300 people in Japan were victims of the fraud, with total damage of about 3.5 billion dollars.

The MPD obtained arrest warrants for theft and other charges after determining Watanabe and the three others masterminded the scams. The MPD sought the extradition of the four men, but the Philippines did not comply with the request, since the men may have been involved in other cases in the Philippines.