Fake Police Scams in Tokyo Down Nearly 40 Pct in Jan.-May

Tokyo, July 6 (Jiji Press)–The number of reported fraud cases in Tokyo involving scammers posing as police officers dropped 38.8 pct from a year earlier in the first five months of 2026, Metropolitan Police Department sources said Monday. The number of such cases decreased to 548, while the total financial damage from such scams shrank 38.3 pct to 6,170.69 million yen. A senior MPD official said that anti-fraud measures are beginning to take effect, with downloads of a crime prevention smartphone app promoted by the department doubling during roughly the same period. Cases in which scammers impersonate police officers to present false arrest warrants and swindle victims have been reported nationwide since around 2023. According to the National Police Agency, total losses from such scams reached 98.5 billion yen in 2025, the first year the agency started tracking the fraud type, accounting for about 70 pct of all special fraud losses. Fake police scammers swindled victims out of an average of 270 million yen per day. Many cases began with victims receiving international calls from numbers starting with the +1 country code. Last December, the MPD added a feature to its Digi Police crime prevention app that blocks international calls made to mobile phones, believing that reducing unwanted international calls would help curb fraud damage. The number of users shot up after the MPD called on people to utilize the app. App downloads, which totaled around 1 million during the roughly 10 years prior to the update, doubled in the approximately seven months following it. Digi Police’s new feature has blocked about 420,000 incoming calls on Android devices alone, according to available data. Including iPhones, “the number of calls prevented is believed to be substantially higher,” the senior MPD official said. The agency is also focusing on crime prevention measures for fixed-line phones and encouraging people in Tokyo to use a free service that blocks calls from international numbers. But the NPA has said that fake police scams have not decreased nationwide, with damage in January-May up 24.2 pct from a year earlier to 40.3 billion yen. While a crime prevention app released by a private company and recommended by the NPA was launched in March, it has been downloaded only 1,143,000 times as of the end of May. Whether fake police scams can be reduced will likely depend on how much the number of users of crime prevention apps can be increased. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]