Japan Police to Ramp Up Steps against Laundering of Scam Money

Tokyo, Jan. 8 (Jiji Press)–Japanese police plan to strengthen penalties for illegal transfers of bank accounts and regulate so-called remittance side jobs as part of their efforts to beef up crackdowns on money laundering involving scam proceeds. The measures were included in a report released by the National Police Agency on Thursday to sum up related discussions by an expert panel. The report also cited the need for police to introduce a method in which they open bank accounts under fictitious names and provide them to crime groups as part of investigations. The NPA aims to submit a bill to revise the criminal proceeds transfer prevention law to the ordinary session of the Diet, Japan’s parliament, slated to be convened Jan. 23. In 2024, fraudsters had victims remit money to bank accounts in about 50 pct of so-called special fraud cases, including telephone scams, and about 80 pct of investment and romance scams using social media, according to the NPA. Bank accounts illegally purchased by those engaging in so-called “dark” part-time jobs were used in many of the incidents. Police cracked down on 4,362 cases of bank account trading in 2024, up 3.5-fold from 2011, when the punishment for the act was raised to imprisonment of up to a year or a fine of up to 1 million yen. The number of bank accounts that were frozen or forcibly terminated also grew by more than three times compared with 2011. The NPA report said that the current penalty for account trading lacks deterrence and that stronger punishment should be introduced. Also in the report, the agency said that remittance side jobs, often offered on social media in which people transfer money they received in personal bank accounts to designated accounts, amount to illicitly using other people’s bank accounts by exploiting a legal loophole. The practice is becoming a new method employed in money laundering schemes, it added. Penalties should be adopted for remittance side jobs, as the act does not involve bank account trading and therefore is not covered by existing regulations, the report said. However, remittance side job crackdowns will be limited to cases in which the practice is carried out without legitimate grounds and as a paid service, and the envisaged punishment is expected to be lighter than for the illegal transfer of bank accounts. The report said that police investigations using bank accounts set up under fictitious identities will be effective in deterring illegal bank account transfers and swiftly recovering swindled money. The NPA will set rules on the handling of money transferred to such accounts under the planned law revision, and discuss effective ways to utilize the accounts for investigations, such as tracking the flow of money. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]