• An elderly Japanese woman was scammed out of over $748,000 worth of tokens by a crypto scammer who told her that her bank account was under attack.
• The scammer convinced her to open a wallet on a crypto exchange and use her bank details to buy an unnamed token, which was then promptly stolen.
• Crypto fraud is on the rise in Japan, with an increasing number of older victims being targeted.
An elderly Japanese woman in her eighties was the victim of a devastating crypto scam that cost her over $748,000 worth of tokens. According to reports, the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department’s Tamagawa station described the victim as “a woman in her eighties from Setagaya Ward, Tokyo.” The woman was contacted on her landline by a person claiming to be from the local government, saying that her bank account was “being used for a crime and [her] funds were about to be frozen.”
The scammer then convinced the elderly woman to open a wallet on a crypto exchange and use her bank details to buy an unnamed token. The scammer also made sure that they were aware of the wallet’s password, which they used to promptly steal the token. After the call, the crypto the woman had bought had “disappeared” from the wallet.
The incident is now being investigated as a special fraud case. Unfortunately, crypto fraud is on the rise in Japan, with an increasing number of older victims being targeted. In 2018, an 84-year-old woman in Aichi Prefecture was scammed out of over $530,000 worth of crypto by scammers who also pretended to be from the local government.
The Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department has warned people to be vigilant and not to trust anyone who calls and claims to be from a government office. They have also urged people to be careful when buying and selling crypto, and to be aware of the risks associated with the digital currency.