It was just too good to be true.

Despite constant efforts by police and government organizations in Japan, the wave of “special fraud” (tokushu sagi) seems to continue unabated. And as the years go by, the tactics employed by these thieves seem to constantly evolve from pretending to be an elderly person’s son to pretending to be Mick Jagger or an astronaut in orbit.

One would think the more outlandish these premises get, the less likely they are to succeed, but they do time and time again. Just take a look at the case of a man in his 70s living in the city of Suzuka, Mie Prefecture, who was taken in by an extravagant offer for his sperm.

According to an investigation by the Mie Prefectural Police, the victim met “a woman” online and last April she sent a message over social media, offering nine million yen (US$57,000) if he provided her with his semen.

After a tentative deal was reached, the woman put the man in contact with “her lawyers” to set the terms and finalize the deal. From this point on, the woman’s legal team continuously requested payments from the man for things such as a non-disclosure agreement and to unfreeze a bank account. The man was instructed to do so by purchasing prepaid electronic currency cards.

▼ People claiming to be police or lawyers while asking for something like WebMoney cards is one of the bigger red flags of these scams.

Nearly 600 prepaid cards and about 38 million yen ($240,000) in payments later, the man suspected something was wrong and consulted an actual lawyer. The attorney recognized this as a case of special fraud and advised the man to go to the police, who are currently investigating the matter.

They say the crime was accomplished in a manner similar to a romance scam, where a strong relationship is built up over a long time before the actual fraud begins. They didn’t explain how this situation played out, since that would essentially be teaching us all how to commit a crime, but it really must have been a truly elaborate ploy to convince someone they could sell their semen.

Online comments were also baffled by how things could have gotten to the point they did.

“To think you could swindle 38 million with something like that. I guess anything can be used for a scam.”
“How could anyone fall for that?”
“Yeah, I’ll give you 9 million, but you’ll have to give me 38 million first…”
“The fact that he had 38 million to give would suggest he wasn’t even doing it for the money.”
“At least no one got hurt.”
“Who’d want a 70-year-old’s sperm even for free?”
“And you know they’re never going to catch these people.”
“He’s either suffering from dementia or a dimwit.”

It’s easy to write this victim off as merely being slow on the uptake, but the facts would suggest otherwise.

This elderly person somehow managed to purchase 571 prepaid cards from various convenience stores over months without arousing the suspicion of staff, who are now trained to identify and stop potential fraud victims, epitomized by a senior citizen buying e-currency cards. Sure, he could have slipped by lazy clerks once or twice, but he would definitely need to have his wits about him and then some to pull off buying that many cards.

Even in general, it’s dangerous to assume these victims are merely foolish, because it underestimates the scammers’ ability to operate on an emotional level, creating a fog that blinds people to conventional logic. That kind of dismissive thinking just makes it easier for them to sneak in and exploit people’s feelings of love, fear, or loneliness.

Perhaps that’s why these crimes continue in the face of all the informational awareness-raising campaigns going on in Japan. They may never go away until everyone remembers that it’s just as important to be emotionally stable as it is to be aware.

Source: Mie TV, Itai News
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