Even “fake creditors” are prepared!　The “cunning tricks” of a group of “groundhogs”!

The land where the scam took place is located not far from Numabukuro Station on the Seibu Shinjuku Line in Nakano Ward. It is approximately 360 square meters in size. At the time of the incident, the land was vacant, but the actual owner has now built a house and is living there.

On May 17, the Metropolitan Police Department’s Investigation Department’s Investigation Division 2 reported a case of a man who was accused of defrauding a real estate company in Tokyo out of 7,000,000 yen in cash between April and May 2005. On May 17, the Investigation Division 2 of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department re-arrested four suspects, Osamu Akita, Kenji Ueno, Yukihiro Kashio, and Kazutsugu Yamazaki, all real estate brokers, for defrauding a real estate company in Tokyo out of 7 million yen in cash between April and May 2005. In April this year, the four had already been arrested on the charge of attempted fraudulent recording of an electromagnetic notarized deed when they were detected by the Legal Affairs Bureau when they attempted to file a false registration application for the land in Nakano Ward.

Authorities believe that Akita is the ringleader, Ueno is the instructor, Kashio is the arranger of judicial scriveners and others, and Yamazaki is the impersonator. Both Akita and Ueno were also arrested in the Shibuya-Tomigaya groundwork case, which was established in January 2009. This case also involved Misao Kaminskas, a suspect who gained fame in the Sekisui House case.

Around April 2005, a real estate company “A” in Shinjuku was targeted by a group of such well-known groundhogs. In around April 2005, Company A was approached by Akita and other suspects and asked to buy a plot of land in Nakano Ward for ¥120,000,000.

In the process of buying and selling the land for 120 million yen, an intermediary named Company B acted as a go-between for Akita and Company A. Company A was asked by Akita and others to buy the land in Nakano Ward for 120 million yen. The scheme was that Company B would buy the land for 70 million yen from the fake land owner, whom the suspects posed as, and Company B would then sell it to Company A for 120 million yen. Company B then sold the land to Company A for ¥120 million. After the incident was discovered, Company B is currently repaying Company A 50 million yen in installments. Therefore, the pure damage amount this time is 70 million yen,” said a director of a commercial TV station.

The “groundhogs” use all possible means to deceive their targets. For the impersonators, they choose people who are similar in age and height to the real landowners, and forge driver’s licenses and residence certificates.

In order to deceive Company A this time, Akita and the other suspects presented a fake driver’s license and other evidence to make the impersonators believe they were the real owners of the land. What is even more devious is that they even prepared the role of a ‘fake creditor’ to whom the payment should be credited. Yamazaki, the impersonator, would say, “Actually, I have a debt. I have a debt, and I want the money to be transferred to the account designated by the creditor of that debt. On the day of settlement, he even called a lawyer. He prepared very carefully and deceived Company A.

In this way, Company A was robbed of its money. One of the difficulties in the investigation of the “dungeon master” case is that it is difficult to determine whether the third party involved in the case is an “accomplice” or a “bona fide third party. The aforementioned reporter said, “The authorities have been unable to determine the identity of Company B, which acted as an intermediary.

The authorities said that Company B, which acted as an intermediary, was not an accomplice, but that it could not be said to be a “purely innocent victim. Furthermore, the lawyers who showed up on the day of settlement are also considered likely to be de facto accomplices. But they have not been arrested this time, of course. In the past, these “de facto accomplices” were involved in multiple cases.

The “land sharks” and their accomplices continue to operate under the radar, skilfully circumventing the law. (Some titles in the text are omitted.)