Japan Police to Ramp Up Steps against Laundering of Scam Money

Newsfrom Japan

Society

Jan 8, 2026 12:52 (JST)

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.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]

Jiji Press