Japanese police arrest a staffing company president accused of turning scam money into crypto for a 1% cut

At the 1% commission police allege ^[5], the 4.4 million yen transfer behind the arrests ^[2] would have paid Weather about 44,000 yen ^[17]. Apply the same rate to the roughly 91 million yen police are examining for February and March 2024 ^[2] and the firm's take comes to about 910,000 yen ^[16]. On the police account, that was the price of taking a social media investment scam's proceeds into a staffing company's bank account and turning them into crypto ^[8][5].

The arrests turn on the bank leg of the chain, or rather on whose name was on the account. Investigators believe Weather's corporate account was the first destination for victims' money ^[10]. From there the conversions ran through channels outside Japan ^[9], in Bitcoin and USDT according to some accounts ^[21], and police say that overseas leg made the source of the money harder to identify ^[9]. The domestic account carried a company's name, and that company's president is one of only two suspects the reports identify ^[4][13].

Tanaka's alleged role is the conversion service itself ^[11], and the concealment charge is aimed at that service ^[7]. Whether police are now going after the businesses that turn fraud money into crypto is a larger claim than one case supports. The reports describe a single joint investigation by the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department and the National Police Agency's Special Cybercrime Investigation Department ^[6]. They do not say whether anyone who ran the scam is among the six, four of whom have not been named ^[13].

The 1% may have been Weather's share alone, with Shibuya and the other intermediaries paid separately ^[15]. In that case the scam paid more for its conversions than the figure police have put on the firm ^[5]. The arrests also do not establish that any of the six committed the offenses, and their responses have not been disclosed ^[14]. Allowing for both, we think the 1% fee says more about this case than the 91 million yen does. If the allegations hold, the firm put its own corporate account first in line to receive scam money ^[10] at a price that treated the legal risk as small. Its president is now held on suspicion of concealing criminal proceeds ^[7].