TOKYO (TR) – Law enforcement has revealed that the ringleaders in a series of illegal part-time job robberies in the Tokyo metropolitan area purchased other people’s social media accounts and used them to recruit underlings, reports TBS News (Dec. 7).
Police allege that Hiroto Fukuchi, 26, Takuya Saito, 26, Karura Murakami, 27, and Shota Watanabe, 26, coordinated a series of home invasion robberies, including one in Ichikawa City, Chiba Prefecture last year that resulted in injury to a woman in her 50s.
Police have not announced whether the four suspects have admitted to the charges.
As previously reported, thieves broke the residence of a 72-year-old woman on October 17, 2024. The perpetrators are suspected of stealing the woman’s wallet and car after smashing a window to gain entrance. They also kidnapped the woman’s 50-year-old daughter, who was sleeping at the time of the break-in.
It had been previously revealed that the perpetrators applied for illegal part-time jobs via social media.
From left, Hiroto Fukuchi, Karura Murakami, Takuya Saito and Shota Watanabe (X)X
Police are investigating the ring as being the work of an anonymous, mobile crime group (tokuryu).
Interviews with investigators have newly revealed that Fukuchi and his accomplices purchased other people’s X accounts from sellers multiple times online between late August and late October last year, when the series of robberies occurred. They then used those accounts to recruit perpetrators.
The recruitment posts reportedly stated phrases such as “same-day cash, high reward” and “robbery, burglary.”
Investigators believe that Fukuchi and his accomplices recruited perpetrators by using the accounts for short periods of time and then disposed of them.
Since August last year, there have been 18 robberies in the Tokyo metropolitan area, with illegal part-time workers as the perpetrators. It has been confirmed that the leaders used a total of more than 50 accounts.
Signal
In October last year, 75-year-old Hiroharu Goto was found dead in his home in Aoba Ward, Yokohama City. His hands and feet had been bound with adhesive tape and multiple bones were broken.
Feeling a growing sense of crisis, police established a joint investigation headquarters that same month and began full-scale investigations aimed at eliminating the crime ring.
Most of the 51 perpetrators were uncovered through security camera investigations and other means. Investigators did not approach the crime scenes, but instead focused on identifying the masterminds who were issuing orders via smartphone communication apps.
The true nature of ring was difficult to pin down due to their use of these apps, such as Signal, which uses an end-to-end encryption system. Challenging for law enforcement is that communication content is not stored on a server, but rather exchanged directly between users’ smartphones.
Analysis of individual smartphones only provided fragmentary information, making it difficult to identify the source of the messages. However, police implemented a meticulous, cross-regional investigation that pieced together fragmented information obtained from approximately 750 smartphones seized from the perpetrators.
AloJapan.com