Tokyo Police Arrest 3 with Possible Links with Serial Robberies

Tokyo, April 22 (Jiji Press)--Tokyo police have arrested three people, including a senior member of a money laundering group, on suspicion of their involvement in a special fraud case.

According to Tokyo's Metropolitan Police Department, Takuya Higuchi, 37, from the city of Toyonaka, Osaka Prefecture, western Japan, received at least 10 million yen, part of the money stolen in a high-profile string of robberies orchestrated by ringleaders who went by names including "Luffy."

The MPD suspects that the trio was contracted to launder money for multiple criminal groups. The two others are Hideyuki Aida, 33, from Tokyo's Shinagawa Ward, and Kaori Fukui, 48, from Meguro Ward in the Japanese capital.

The three suspects were arrested for allegedly swindling a man in his 60s in Chiba Prefecture, near Tokyo, out of about 1.2 million yen in mid-April 2023 by calling him in the guise of a telecommunications company worker and others, and saying that he owed unpaid adult website fees.

The suspects exchanged the defrauded money for crypto assets, sending them to an account managed by Higuchi. The assets were later converted into cash by Fukui and given to Aida, who then transported the cash to Higuchi's home, which also contained some of the money stolen in the high-profile Luffy robbery cases.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]