Woman in her 60s defrauded 250 million yen in SNS investment scam - Yamaguchi Prefectural Police

Yamaguchi Prefectural Police announced on the 21st that a woman in her 60s in Iwakuni City, Yamaguchi Prefecture, was approached by a person she met on social media about investing, and was defrauded of approximately 250 million yen in cash and gold bullion. This is said to be the highest amount of damage ever incurred in a special fraud case in the prefecture.

According to prefectural police, around June this year, the woman received a solicitation for stock investment through LINE from two people she met on social media who claimed to be employees of an existing foreign securities company. They were directed to a special website that appeared to be fictitious, and transferred investment funds and handed over cash and gold bullion a total of 10 times.

The company was making profits on the dedicated website, but when the woman told them she wanted to withdraw the profits, she was asked to pay additional fees in the name of fees, taxes, and service charges. The incident was discovered after a woman, who had paid approximately 80 million yen, became suspicious that her investment profits had not been transferred to the police earlier this month and reported it to the police.