Two alleged ringleaders of Thailand-based phone scam arrested in Japan

[webfact]

Two alleged ringleaders of Thailand-based phone scam arrested in Japan

KYODO

 

Shimpei Hirata | KYODO

 

Two men believed to be ringleaders of a large-scale phone scam based in Thailand were arrested Thursday in Japan, bringing the total number of those arrested in the case to 28.

 

Kengo Yasutake, 36, and Shimpei Hirata, 34, are suspected of sending instructions to a rented luxury house located in the Thai beach resort city of Pattaya, where a separate group of Japanese men had called people across Japan claiming they had failed to pay subscription fees for a website.

 

The group is believed to have tricked over 200 people out of more than ¥200 million ($1.8 million) in total. Fifteen Japanese men in their 20s to 50s were arrested by Thai police last March and Japanese investigators arrested them in May aboard aircraft while they were being transported from Thailand to Japan.

 

Full story: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/01/16/national/crime-legal/two-alleged-ringleaders-thailand-based-phone-scam-arrested-japan/

 

-- The Japan Times 2020-01-17

 

 

[Paradise Pete]

28 people already arrested for scamming just US$1.8m. How many people in total were in on this? They'd be better off getting a regular job.

[BigFun]

The little scammers were probably scammed by the big scammers too...that's a lot of scamming ????

[Redline]

I guess they got their number 

[impulse]

On 1/17/2020 at 2:15 AM, webfact said:

...had called people across Japan claiming they had failed to pay subscription fees for a website.

 

The group is believed to have tricked over 200 people out of more than ¥200 million ($1.8 million) in total.

 

Must be a hell of a website if they averaged ¥1 million a subscriber.