Japanese police to use fake accounts to fight tokuryū crime

Japan’s parliament enacted a revised law in June aimed at preventing illegally obtained bank accounts from being used to launder criminal proceeds, including money from special fraud such as social media-based swindles.

The revision to the law on preventing transfers of criminal proceeds, passed during the special parliamentary session, toughens penalties for the illicit buying and selling of financial accounts.

Its most notable feature is a provision allowing police, with the cooperation of financial institutions, to open accounts under fictitious names and hand them over to criminals seeking to buy such accounts.

Hopes are growing that the new tool will give police new ammunition against tokuryū — or anonymous, loosely connected criminal groups that recruit members and operate mainly through social media.

Infrastructure for crime

Losses from special fraud in the first half of 2026 topped ¥180 billion ($1.14 billion), the worst figure ever recorded for a January-June period. Although the schemes have grown more varied, over half of the money involve bank transfers. Many of the accounts used to receive it had been illegally bought and sold.

Criminal organizations also exploit such accounts for purposes beyond fraud, using them to collect proceeds from robbery, drug dealing and other offenses, and to launder the money so that its subsequent movements cannot be traced.

The internet is awash with posts offering to buy accounts, and brokers gather them in bulk before reselling them to criminal groups.

“Illicit accounts are vital infrastructure supporting a wide range of crimes,” a senior investigator said.

Police handled about 4,300 cases of illegal buying and selling of bank accounts in 2024, an all-time high, according to a National Police Agency tally. The number is on an upward trend even after penalties were toughened in 2011.

The average price paid to buy an account stood at some ¥35,000, up 50% from a decade earlier, with one account changing hands for as much as ¥500,000.

To evade the rules, “part-time remittance jobs” have also spread. In such shady work, people keep their accounts but earn a fee for moving funds deposited in them to other accounts.

The revised law raises the maximum penalty for trading in accounts to three years in prison or a fine of ¥5 million, from one year or ¥1 million. It also makes remittance jobs a criminal offense in their own right.

Following the money

Under the new system, to be introduced by early June 2027, officers will pose as sellers, respond to online solicitations from criminal groups and provide accounts registered under fictitious names to trace flows of illicit funds.

Once defrauded money or other criminal proceeds are deposited, the account will be frozen immediately so that the funds can be secured before they are dispersed, and can be later returned to victims.

Police officials also expect the measure to help discourage such solicitations, as would-be buyers will be conscious of the possibility that some accounts on offer may be linked to police.

While the main aim is to prevent further damage, fictitious-name accounts are also expected to serve as a new investigative tool for exposing the organizational structures and money flows of tokuryū groups.

Money funneled into purchased accounts is typically shuffled through a series of other accounts before being consolidated into one controlled by the criminal organization. By tracing those transfers and identifying the group’s account, investigators could reach the core members who manage its funds.

As group members also use such accounts to pay and collect rewards for criminal jobs, the accounts could open further avenues for investigation. Police are working to build a stronger framework for tracing and analyzing the flow of funds.

In a similar approach, police have already introduced “disguised identity investigations,” in which officers use fake identification to apply for “dark part-time jobs” advertised on social media. But the workload and the need to secure personnel remain obstacles, and only a limited number of such operations have been carried out.

A senior police official said fictitious-name accounts will be used to probe not only bank accounts but also cryptocurrency and other asset accounts. “If it is rolled out on a reasonable scale with proper monitoring in place, it could turn out quite effective,” the official said.