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In Japan, people–often the elderly–lose tens of millions of dollars every year to scammers. But many don’t do the work themselves. Instead, they’re increasingly relying on desperate young people to do their dirty work for them. Here’s how people get trapped in this world – and why it’s hard to get out.
A son in trouble (?)
Three days had passed since the burning ritual took place at Tokiwa Shrine. The flames engulfed all the New Year’s decorations that invited the gods of good fortune into people’s homes. The Japanese believe that the gods can rise back to the heavens with the smoke.
Another purpose of those decorations was to keep out evil spirits. But on the morning of January 18th, bad luck snuck into the home of an elderly couple.
Two hours by train, northeast of central Tokyo, Mito City sits on the coast of Ibaraki Prefecture facing the Pacific. It was sunny but cold. At 9AM, a 77-year-old man gets a call from his eldest son.
“I forgot my bag that had important contract documents and my phone’s on the train!” The son explains that his credit card is gone and that he has to pay his contractor in cash.
“How much can you get me?” asks the son.
The father replies, “I have ¥70 million ready for you.” That’s more than $500K in USD.
The bag man cometh
Shortly after, the father receives a call from a male employee at the lost and found center. Relief washes over him. They have his son’s luggage. All the father has to do is go to Ueno Station to retrieve it. The two-hour train ride into the city is no burden compared to the paralyzing concern he feels for his flesh and blood.
As the train to Ueno left Mito, the phone rings again. The man’s wife stayed home, so she picks up. It’s her son.
“I’ve sent a trusty colleague of mine to you, so I want you to give him the money.” the son says.
As instructed, the wife waits until the man arrives. She hands him the ¥70 million in cash.
But the husband returns from Tokyo empty-handed. The wife has already given away the fat stack of bills.
Bracing themselves for the worst, they call their eldest son’s wife. She has no idea what’s going on either.
It was a scam. The biggest one in the prefecture’s history. ¥70 million in cash, gone.
Two magic words: “It’s me”
This is just one of the 1,391 scams committed between January and April this year. Within the four months of 2023, more than ¥3.8 billion ($27.2 million) has been lost to so-called “It’s me” scam, or ore-ore sagi (オレオレ詐欺).
In this scam, the scammer cold-calls the victim—typically, an elderly person—and opens the conversation with “Hey, it’s me.” The goal is to get the victim to think they are talking to their child.
The “It’s me” scam is the most common class of tokushu-sagi (特殊詐欺)—the umbrella term for crimes in which perpetrators trick their victims, handing over not only their trust but loads of money too. In English, the term translates to “special scams.”
Approximately 24% of special scams are cases of the “It’s me” scam. The second most common tokushu-sagi is cash card fraud.
In this scam, the perpetrators don’t act like your relatives. Instead, they pretend to be police officers or professionals from banks and big department stores. They call ahead and tell you that someone has hacked your cash card’s bank account. Panicked, you accept their offer to help, and they come over. They swap your real card for a fake one they made.
You thank them for all the trouble and off they go. On their way to an ATM. Before you know it, they’ve withdrawn a lot—if not all— of your money.
From the scammer’s perspective, these in-person transactions of cash and credit cards come with high risk. By visiting their to-be victim’s home, they increase their chances of apprehension. Despite the risk, in-person visits comprised more than 55% of tokushu-sagi transactions.
Why? With high risk also comes high return. One gig can bring in a lot of money at once.
Enough money to risk 10 years in prison—or worse.
Working in the dark
Things weren’t working out for Nishida, a college sophomore.
Not even within a month of starting, he had quit his job at a host club before he could become like the beloved hosts he admired. Then he found himself in yet another job he wanted to quit.
Now, he and his four coworkers have run out of gas. In a tunnel. On the highway.
They just finished a job in Nagoya— two hours away from where they’re stranded.
Crunched up in their light truck, Nishida at least has his phone for distraction. His father had sent him a text last night around 11PM.
“Do you want to have lunch tomorrow if you’re free?”
Nishida hadn’t opened it yet.
Except, Nishida wasn’t his real name.
Before he could reply to his father, a semitrailer eighteen times the weight of their car smashed into them from the right.
The crash killed two, including the boy code-named Nishida. The impact was so strong that he was hurled out of the trunk, onto the pavement.
Left in the car were his one dead and three injured coworkers along with the safe they had stolen from a residence in Nagoya.
These were not university students working a regular night shift. They were the foot soldiers of yamibaito (闇バイト) – Japan’s “dark gig economy”.
Yami means darkness, illegal, and shady. Baito is Japanese for a part-time job.
Their death, inside a dark tunnel from which they couldn’t escape, is eerily symbolic of the fate of those who enter the dark gig economy. You don’t get out unscathed, if at all.
Tip of the iceberg
Information retrieved from Nishida’s phone included scripts that he would’ve had to memorize to commit “It’s me” scams and other tokushu-sagi. The scripts were sent using the app Telegram—which dark gig economy recruiters favor due to the high level of anonymity it offers.
One of the first things a recruiter does is demand an applicant’s ID on Telegram. Once an applicant surrenders their ID, recruiters use whatever information they can gain from it as leverage. They will find who your family is and where they live, and threaten to cause harm should you dare to disobey orders or run away.
That’s why Nishida and others like him are bound to their place in the dark gig economy. Disposable pawns in a high-stakes game.
In 2022, more than 44% of convicted scammers were in their 20s. Approximately 19% were still in their teens.
Questioning of convicted minors revealed that about 40% found dark gig jobs from introductions made by friends. 30% applied through social media. 20% found them via their senpai (先輩), or upper-classmen connections.
The growing problem of yamibaito
The Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department announced early this year that they identified 3480 social media posts that purposefully recruited dark gig economy workers in 2022. Compared to the previous year, this number was 1.5 times higher.
One of the most blatant dark gig economy thefts recently made national headlines when a group robbed a Ginza watch store in broad daylight. The four suspects arrested shortly afterward were all between 16 and 19 years old.
Some of the key markers of a yamibaito recruitment post are words such as urabaito (裏バイト), uke (受け), dashi (出し), kougaku (高額), tataki (叩き), and hakobi (運び). They each mean underground parttime-job, receiver, withdrawer, high-pay, theft, and transport.
Each recruiter varies in his business proposals. But one ex-scammer’s testimony reveals that recruiters will promise an easy job that will bring in ¥500K to a million (up to USD $7,150K), only to pay workers ¥200K (USD $1,430).
The rest of the profits are divided between the recruiters, the scammer’s leadership, and then finally to the top of the food chain: the yakuza.
“In the world of yakuza, amphetamines, scams, and theft are considered haji (恥), or shame,” says Mr. A, an expert on Japan’s underworld who requested not to be named. “So the lower syndicates of the yakuza outsource fraud and theft to grey zone groups, which then recruit yamibaito.”
A vast network of criminals, greed acting as the connective glue. At the tip of the iceberg is a phoneline, going out to the next victim.
They answer.
“It’s me.”
What to read next
Hangure: A New Generation of Gangsters Takes Over Japan’s Underworld
Sources
[1] 恒例行事. Tokiwa Shrine
[2] どんど焼きの意味とは？期間はいつからいつまで？行けなかったらどうする？. Japan Culture Lab
[4] オレオレ詐欺で７千万円だまし取られる 茨城県の被害では過去最高額. Asahi Shinbun
[5] 令和4年における特殊詐欺の認知・検挙状況等について（確定値版）. National Police Agency.
[6] “Appointment Call” Scam: The New – and Deadly – Crime Targeting Japan’s Eldery. Unseen Japan
[7] 特殊詐欺の手口と対策. National Police Agency
[8] 件数と被害額「オレオレ」最多今年9年 警視庁. The Sankei News
[9] #BAN 闇バイト. Metropolitan Police Department
[10] 「どうして息子が」闇バイトの果てに… NHK
[11] 千葉県警が闇バイト求人に警告 交流サイト上で1100件以上 大半のアカウントが削除か凍結. Tokyo Shinbun
[12] 銀座の時計店から３億円分を強奪したが…横浜の暴走族が即逮捕される「アホな事件」に手を染めた根本原因. President Online
[13] 詐欺グループの元主犯格が大学で講義 「闇バイトは犯罪者のいけにえ、捨て駒です」 実体験をもとに語る恐怖の実態 【福岡】. Fukuoka TNC News
[14] 「闇バイト」投稿、警告1.5倍 甘言添えた勧誘急増－困窮の若者標的か・警視庁.
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