9 Arrested in Japan over Sierra Leone-Based Special Fraud

Tokyo, July 1 (Jiji Press)--Police in Japan arrested nine individuals Wednesday for their alleged involvement in a special fraud case using Sierra Leone, western Africa, as a base.

It is unusual for Japanese police to crack down on a Sierra Leone-based special fraud group. So far, fraud groups based in Southeast Asia and targeting people in Japan have been mainly subject to Japanese police investigations.

An investigative source said the group may have thought that Sierra Leone is outside the scope of probes.

The nine individuals, aged between 50 and 79, are all believed to have played the role of callers in the fraud. Four of the nine, including Hirobumi Kitaoka, a 61-year-old resident of Yokohama, near Tokyo, had been arrested by June on suspicion of violating the employment security law for introducing the jobs of fraud callers.

The police department of Hyogo Prefecture, western Japan, arrested the nine individuals on suspicion of calling a woman in her 50s in the northern Japan city of Sapporo by pretending to be staff of the Osaka District Public Prosecutors Office in June 2025, lying to her that her bank account was being used for special fraud and that her money needed to be examined, and cheating her out of 55 million yen by having her remit the amount to a bank account designated by the group.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]