13 Extradited From Cambodia Arrested Over Phone Scam Ring Suspected of Defrauding Victims of 50 Million Yen
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By January 14, 2026, a joint task force of the Metropolitan Police Department and the Kanagawa Prefectural Police had arrested 13 men and women in their 20s to 60s, whose addresses and occupations were unknown, after extraditing them from Cambodia on suspicion of fraud. The 13 are believed to have been members of a phone-call fraud ("kakeko") group operating out of a base in Bavet in southeastern Cambodia. After being detained by local authorities in November 2025, they were handed over to investigators dispatched from Japan, transported to Japan on January 13-14, and subsequently arrested.
The group is believed to have been involved in at least a dozen or more special fraud cases, defrauding victims of a total of roughly 50 million yen. The specific charge involves conspiring with other members of the fraud group to pose as postal workers and police officers and induce a woman in her 60s in Kanagawa Prefecture to transfer a total of 11 million yen in cash to them between late October and early November 2025.
Current status: The case is at the arrest stage; whether prosecutors will indict the suspects had not been determined as of this writing. The nationality breakdown of the 13 suspects had not been disclosed as of this writing.
In recent years, there has been an increase in cases where special fraud groups base their operations overseas — in countries such as Cambodia and the Philippines — with suspects extradited and arrested through cooperation with local authorities. Together with the case involving Taiwan-based cash collectors (related coverage), this points to the growing internationalization and division of labor within special fraud operations.