A Case around Tokyo
In a city around Tokyo, a 79-year old woman got a phone call.
A man on the line said that he was a policeman of a police station having jurisdiction over the residential area where she lived. He told that her name was on a list a criminal group used for selecting targets and money in her bank account was stolen by criminals. Then the self-professed policeman hung up. Soon after it, another call came to her. A man on the line said that he was a clerk of the bank where her stolen deposit was held. He said that he would send someone to her home to check and secure her passbook and the bank card. So, the self-professed bank staff hung up. Very soon after it, a man came to her house to receive the passbook and the bank card. She handed them to the man who soon left her home and disappeared on the street. Yet, some time after the incident, she came to feel something strange. So, she called the police station from which the self-styled policeman must have called her. Then she found that she was now a victim of crime. It was a trick; the self-styled policeman, the self-styled bank staff, and the man who came to take her bankbook and card were all criminals. She was scammed. They already took out 1.5 million yen ($18,000) from her account using her bank card.
Today, this kind of crimes using a phone, targeting old people, and swindling them are now rampant in Japan. And it is believed that there are big organizations of gangsters behind the scene. Professional criminals seem to recruit ordinary but poor and irresponsible guys on the Internet to use them as such callers and money collectors. Hundreds of millions of dollars per year are illegally taken by them via telephone conversations with old people or innocent house wives.
In another case, a young mother living with a handicapped child was swindled in a similar scam involving a bogus telephone calling. She lost 5 million yen saved in a bank for her handicapped child. She became desperate to commit a suicide.
So, a telephone line connects ordinary, innocent, and weak citizens directly with violent, malicious, and crafty gangsters. The Internet also does. Therefore, I recommend telephone carriers and Internet providers to fully cooperate with the police to prevent such crimes.
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Mar 3:23 And he called them unto him, and said unto them in parables, How can Satan cast out Satan?
Mar 3:24 And if a kingdom be divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand.
Mar 3:25 And if a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand.
Mar 3:26 And if Satan rise up against himself, and be divided, he cannot stand, but hath an end.
Mar 3:27 No man can enter into a strong man's house, and spoil his goods, except he will first bind the strong man; and then he will spoil his house.