Investigation of Anonymous, Fluid Criminal Groups: Make Effective Use of New Framework and Methods

Editorial

16:00 JST, October 17, 2025

Criminal groups connected via social media, information about which is difficult to ascertain, pose a significant threat to public safety. Police need to employ a new investigative framework and new methods and dedicate all efforts to crack down on them.

Called “tokuryu,” these criminal groups are anonymous and fluid, with members who repeatedly come together and disperse, making it difficult to identify key figures.

Tokuryu groups are suspected to have been involved in about 13,000 cases of special fraud between January and June, with damages totaling about ¥59.7 billion — both record highs. The groups generate funds through a range of crimes, including robberies carried out by those recruited for “dark part-time jobs” via social media and the fraudulent transfer of money for online casinos.

Police uncovered about 5,000 tokuryu members from January to June, but only about 10% of them were key culprits or masterminds. This highlights the reality that investigations are struggling to reach the upper echelons of the crime groups.

Cracking down merely on low-ranking members will not prevent the damage caused by such criminal groups. Using conventional investigative approaches, designed to handle organized crime groups with clear hierarchies and high organizational structures, it is difficult to deal with tokuryu groups.

This month, the police launched a new framework aimed at eliminating tokuryu groups. Key pillars of the framework include establishing a new organization to serve as a command center to analyze investigative intelligence from multiple angles and identify masterminds, as well as an enforcement team comprising 200 officers from across the nation.

In a fictitious billing fraud case uncovered this year, the possibility emerged that the culprits being pursued in separate incidents by the Metropolitan Police Department and the Aichi prefectural police were the same individual. As a result of intensive investigations, 300 connected cases nationwide in which victims suffered damages came to light. The man is believed to be a central figure in a tokuryu group.

It can be said that the case was one in which information sharing and analysis proved successful. It underscores the need for deeper cooperation beyond prefectural police boundaries.

The introduction of new investigative methods must also be expedited.

Police have already introduced “disguised identity investigations,” in which undercover investigators apply for dark part-time jobs to come into contact with criminal groups. They are also considering “fake-account investigations,” in which police would set up fake banking accounts under fake names to trick fraud groups into using them.

Prosecutors have also indicated a policy of actively utilizing the Japanese version of a plea-bargaining system in investigations into special fraud. Under the system, the criminal charges of those targeted in investigations and others are dropped or reduced in exchange for their cooperation in solving the cases.

Some members of a group — whose connection to dark part-time job-related robberies has been uncovered and who were under the direction of “Luffy” and others — joined another criminal organization based in the Philippines and taught it their fraud methods.

Strengthening cooperation with overseas authorities is essential for cracking down on tokuryu groups, whose crimes are becoming increasingly complex and sophisticated, beyond national borders.

(From The Yomiuri Shimbun, Oct. 17, 2025)