On the 27th, Tomigusuku Police Station announced that a social media-based investment scam had occurred, in which a person claiming to be a Malaysian woman defrauded a woman in her 40’s from the southern part of Okinawa’s main island of approximately 5.4 million yen worth of cryptocurrency and cash under the pretense of cryptocurrency investment.
According to the police, the person claiming to be a Malaysian woman contacted the victim in late December last year through the messaging function of TikTok. Later, they guided the woman to LINE and continued casual conversations before introducing an investment scheme using the cryptocurrency “Ethereum.”
The victim purchased Ethereum online and, along with cash, transferred multiple payments ranging from 100,000 to 1 million yen per transaction to the bank account specified by the alleged Malaysian woman.
During the initial stages of the transfers, a few tens of thousands of yen were actually deposited into the victim’s account as “profits.”
