Japanese nationals Yuki Watanabe (left) and Tomonobu Kojima are suspects in a string of robberies and telephone fraud cases across Japan.- AFP
TOKYO (The Straits Times/Asia News Network): In three years, unsuspecting victims in Japan lost more than six billion yen (US$45 million) through phone scams. Then a spate of at least 50 violent robberies hit 14 prefectures across the country.
What is even more shocking was that these cases were “directed” all the way from the Philippines, with the tentacles of the alleged mastermind having stretched far and wide from his base in Manila – even from behind bars after his arrest in 2021.
Yuki Watanabe, 38, who was also called “Boss”, was said to have been calling the shots, assisted by right-hand man Tomonobu Kojima, 45, and two associates, Toshiya Fujita, 38, and Kiyoto Imamura, 38.
All four men were deported to Tokyo this month – Fujita and Imamura on Feb 7 and Watanabe and Kojima a day later – on suspicion of remotely orchestrating a years-long series of crimes across Japan.
And unlike traditional yakuza triads in Japan who typically operate within their own turf, Watanabe’s victims spanned from the Greater Tokyo region in the east through Hiroshima and Yamaguchi prefectures in the west.
This bamboozled investigators: were they copycat crimes, or were the strings being pulled by one syndicate?
What further raised eyebrows was the fact that the quartet were behind bars at the Bicutan detention centre in a Manila suburb, surrounded by 4m walls and barbed wire.
But source-based reports in Japan allege institutional corruption in a centre where hands could be greased in exchange for VIP treatment such as smartphone and Wi-Fi access. Watanabe was even reportedly allowed visits to a local casino.
The transnational nature of the crimes had not only complicated investigations but also shone a light on the growing scourge of phone scams across the region.
Lure of easy money
Watanabe and his gang were said to have run their organised crime ring like a business.
Watanabe, the alleged ringleader, was born in Hokkaido and worked as a tout at a “girls’ bar” in Sapporo’s Susukino nightlife district before he fell into crime.
He reportedly had once used Thailand as a base to conduct phone fraud but moved to the Philippines after a cash delivery of about 37 million yen was thwarted in 2017.
In Manila, Watanabe, who allegedly called himself “Luffy”, an apparent nod to the character Monkey D Luffy, the straw hat-wearing pirates’ captain from the popular manga and anime series One Piece, was said to have coordinated crime through various operational bases.
One of the bases, in an abandoned hotel, was busted in 2019 when 36 Japanese nationals were arrested for making calls to defraud the elderly in Japan.
Watanabe had been working out of a five-star hotel in the Philippines when he was arrested in 2021, after being placed on an Interpol wanted list for fraud and blackmail. But his loss of freedom proved to be no obstacle to the syndicate’s operations.
Taking advantage of youth disillusionment in Japan where wages are low and prospects of regular employment are uncertain, Watanabe’s group allegedly employed “recruiters” who lured youth on social media by promising “high income” and “easy money” part-time jobs.
Many of these low-level criminals were young and in dire need of cash. To get the job, they have to send a mugshot of themselves along with their identification card, from which the syndicate could glean personal information such as their addresses.
These expendable lackeys were cast in such roles as getaway drivers, conmen, robbers and runners who would smuggle the ill-gotten gains from Japan to the Philippines.
They could not back out even when details of the job became clearer, being coerced with such threats as “we know where you live”. This proved to be another obstacle to investigators, as many stayed silent out of fear of bringing harm to their families.
Their reward would depend on the value of the money and goods stolen.
In robberies, getaway drivers could earn 800,000 yen per job; those who barged into homes could rake in 1 million to 1.5 million yen; and those who pawned the goods for money could get 3 to 5 per cent of the earnings, the Yomiuri newspaper said.
The remainder was taken to the Philippines for the ringleaders.
From fraud to robbery
Watanabe’s syndicate allegedly first dabbled in fraud.
Impersonating a police officer or a government official from the Financial Services Agency, someone would call up an elderly target to tell them their bank accounts had been compromised and to “clarify” their banking information, including the ATM card PIN.
Within the hour, an underling in Japan – always a well-dressed man carrying a fake identification card – would show up at the target’s home, the quick response engineered to win the trust of the prospective victim.
He would ask the victim to leave their ATM card in an envelope. But when the victim is distracted, he would secretly swap the envelope with another identical-looking one, pocketing the genuine ATM card.
This would be dropped off to a third person, who would then drain the victim’s account.
But with a clampdown on phone scams in Japan, where more than 70 people have been arrested in relation to the syndicate, Watanabe purportedly shifted gears to violent robbery.
Arrest of a soldier
In doing so, the “Luffy” character was semi-retired and a “Kim Young-jun” took charge.
Rather than posing as bank officials on the phone, the group acted as telemarketing agents who were conducting phone surveys on people’s lifestyles and their assets.
This was used to draw up lists of potential targets for theft, taking advantage of Japan’s ageing population and their isolation, with many living alone.
The robberies were directed by phone, with instructions conveyed through the encrypted messaging app Telegram which could be set up for messages to disappear once read.
“Kim Young-jun” also casually issued orders to kill if their victims resisted.
The robbers – hired from all over Japan and unacquainted with one another – would be told such things as “cash in the basement”, “prepare gloves and a balaclava”, and that it was “fine to kill someone in a robbery”.
At least one person has died – 90-year-old Kinuyo Oshio, who lived in the western Tokyo suburb of Komae, was killed on Jan 19, her home ransacked. The robbers made away with three luxury watches, a diamond ring, and cash of about 600,000 yen.
In another case in Tokyo’s Nakano ward, which borders Shinjuku, a 49-year-old resident was assaulted and punched by bandits who posed as delivery workers. They made away with 30 million yen in cash in under four minutes.
Eight men have been arrested in connection to this single case, with a 34-year-old man telling the Yomiuri newspaper: “The members gathered solely for the robberies and did not know each other.”
At least 70 people have been arrested since October 2022 in connection with robberies across Japan tied to the syndicate. All of them were aged from their teens to their 30s. Among them was Kaichi Nakagiri, 23, a soldier with the Ground Self-Defence Force.
Working from jail
According to Philippine law, those with pending domestic charges cannot be extradited until their cases are fully settled.
This was exploited by Watanabe and his aides to prolong their stay in the Philippines – where they were living it up like kings – despite Japan having actively sought their extradition.
For Watanabe, his then wife lodged a complaint accusing him of domestic violence and physical abuse, so he could be sentenced and remain in jail in Manila.
That charge – and others purportedly faced by his accomplices – were ruled as fabricated, with the local courts dismissing their cases this month, leading to their deportation.
Japanese media cited sources as saying that officials at the Bicutan centre could be bribed into providing prepaid SIM cards, smartphones and Wi-Fi access. Rules were, however, tightened in the Philippines from December, mandating that identification must be produced when buying a SIM card.
One former inmate told the Asahi newspaper of a “mini-economy” at the centre where a bribe can buy an air-conditioned single room equipped with a private shower, as well as other perks like pizza deliveries and beer.
Broadcaster TBS reported in February that all 36 officials at the Bicutan centre have been sacked.
Along with the four suspects, Philippine police have handed over to their Tokyo counterparts 15 smartphones and tablets that were believed to have been used while in detention.
“The suspects are being deported because they have been tagged by their government as fugitives from justice. Therefore, they are considered undesirable aliens in this country,” the Philippines’ immigration bureau spokesman Dana Sandoval said.
Yet Japanese police fear that what they have uncovered might only be the tip of the iceberg, given emerging accounts of multiple “Luffys”.
A man arrested for a robbery in Yamaguchi in November claimed to have met Luffy in person in Japan – which would have been impossible since Watanabe and his peers were in custody in Manila.
The dreaded question: are there even more powerful masterminds behind the scenes?
Retired police superintendent Yuichi Sakurai believes the buck may not stop with the arrested quartet.
“The police are working hard to surgically dissect the syndicate, and analysis of the smartphone data might lead them to more higher-ups,” he said.
“If the ultimate mastermind is not caught, there is every chance that they will regroup and the same crimes will happen again.”
