We have more and more Japan related investment fraud cases where fraud companies that pretend to have a physical address in Japan defraud investment money from foreign customers. They are categorized as “Cold Callers” and more and more those entities are being black listed on Japanese FSA website.
They have a Japanese local phone number and a physical address in Tokyo, Osaka or Yokohama. But often the case, they do not display the floor number of the address. Most of the address are famous landmark towers or buildings in the center of financial district, major bank head quarter buildings or the head quarter of the stock exchange. Some entities display a floor number, but most don’t. It will be because it is easier to deceive customers without a floor number than with it.
Many customers try to serve a legal document to the address or locate the person in charge of their investments. But those fraud entities are subscribing a local number from an international call forwarding services. So it is not possible to us to locate where they are receiving the call. They will be receiving call in other countries outside Japan. And the address is just a fake and has nothing to do with them. So we are not able to do anything just from the address.
The clues of these fraud cases are:
- The local number
- The bank account
- The domain registry information
The police and the Interpol could trance the subscriber of the local phone number, bank account where the customers deposited money to and URL registry information. You could find out who they are but we don’t know which jurisdiction they are to be indicted till we locate them.
At least, even though there physical address is Japan, unfortunately, it is not possible for us to uncover their actual identity.
