Tokyo Police Warn of Surge in Fake Cop Phone Scams
- Tokyo police issued a sharp public warning regarding a dramatic surge in phone scams involving fraudsters posing as law enforcement officers.
- Fraudsters typically contact potential victims by phone, address them as suspects in criminal investigations, and exploit their fear of legal trouble.
- Con artists employ sophisticated telecommunications strategies, often placing calls from numbers ending in 0110 to mimic the final digits used by police stations throughout Japan.
Tokyo police issued a sharp public warning regarding a dramatic surge in phone scams involving fraudsters posing as law enforcement officers. According to the Metropolitan Police Department, criminal proceeds from police-impersonation swindles across Tokyo reached 7 billion yen between January and April, marking a twenty-three-fold increase compared to the same period in the previous year.
Surge in Fake Police Phone Scams Across Tokyo
Fraudsters typically contact potential victims by phone, address them as suspects in criminal investigations, and exploit their fear of legal trouble. According to statistics kept by the Metropolitan Police Department, overall ore-ore swindles—where imposters pretend to be relatives or officials—reached 988 reported and attempted cases between January and April, representing a 3.5-fold increase from 284 instances during the same timeframe a year earlier. Within those figures, scams involving self-proclaimed police personnel jumped 12.2 times to 706 year on year. According to the same data, these imposters accounted for 70 percent of all reported ore-ore fraud cases. Swindlers made off with 6.99 billion yen during the four-month window, dwarfing the 310 million yen recorded during the corresponding period of last year and already surpassing the entire annual total of 6.96 billion yen for 2024.
Deceptive Tactics and Generational Targeting
Con artists employ sophisticated telecommunications strategies, often placing calls from numbers ending in 0110 to mimic the final digits used by police stations throughout Japan. According to reported findings, perpetrators also utilize international numbers beginning with +81, anonymous sequences, and spoofing methods that display genuine police station phone numbers on victims’ smartphones and landlines. During these calls, fraudsters tell victims that bankbooks have been exploited in illegal incidents. The criminals then use video calls on the popular Line app to display counterfeit police identification cards and arrest warrants. While elderly demographics remain frequent targets of traditional relative impersonation scams, police data reveals that police-impersonation fraud affects a wide generational span. The highest number of police-invoking scams, totaling 154, targeted residents in their 60s, followed by 139 victims in their 50s and 134 victims in their 30s. Authorities also documented 122 cases among individuals in their 20s or younger.
Metropolitan Police Department Response and Call-Back Strategy
To combat the rising losses, the Metropolitan Police Department urges residents to implement a strict verification strategy. According to law enforcement representatives, individuals contacted by anyone claiming to be a police officer should immediately hang up.
This tactic is acceptable even when actual police officials are on the other end of the phone,
an MPD representative stated. We want people to make sure to stick to the call-back strategy to avoid becoming victims.
Residents are advised to ask callers for their specific department affiliations, names, and extension numbers, and then independently call back their affiliated police stations using verified numbers. Between January and April, the MPD confirmed a total of 1,496 special fraud cases across the capital, marking 511 more incidents than were recorded during the same period last year.
