Police releases ‘It’s me’ fraud phone call recording

Okinawa Prefectural Police made public a recording of a man’s voice making a phone call to an elderly woman in her 80’s, trying to convince the woman to transfer money into a bank account.

Prefectural Police suspect that the man is a member of a group specializing in duping mostly elderly people to transfer money to an account set up by the group by pretending to be a relative in distress, a government official or some other operative.

The recording that is about three minutes long was made at an ATM in a bank in the middle part of the island, where the woman who received the call from the group was instructed to go to make the transaction. Instead, she called the police, and then went to the ATM with a police bug in her phone.

Similar fraud cases have sharply increased in Okinawa since July so the Prefectural Police released the recording of the real conversation between a con man and the woman in order for especially elderly people to watch out for fraudsters.

According to Prefectural Police, 10 victims of similar fraud have been confirmed with an amount defrauded totaling ¥10.2 million as of Aug. 9th. Police have also provided consultation in 67 cases of so called “refund fraud.”

23:19 29 Mar , 2024