TOKYO — A total of 4,472 people nationwide were arrested or investigated on suspicion of involvement in so-called “anonymous and fluid criminal groups,” where different people switch roles as perpetrators for each case, between April and October this year , of which 1,820 people, or 40%, applied for “dark gigs” on social networks, according to provisional figures published by the National Police Agency.

Broken down by type of crime, 1,515 people were involved in violations of the Anti-Transfer of Criminal Proceeds Act, such as transferring bank accounts, followed by 1,284 people in fraud cases, 427 in drug-related crimes, such as trespassing narcotics control laws. , 398 in theft, 170 in organized crime violations such as concealing criminal proceeds, 133 in robberies, and 89 in immigration violations.

Other offenses included breaching the adult entertainment business law with 76 people, extortion with 57 people and gambling offenses with 49 people.

Many of these anonymous, loosely connected criminal groups use highly secure communication apps like Signal, making it difficult for authorities to reach the ring leaders who give the orders. Due to such circumstances, it is believed that most of those involved in these cases are low-level agents.

Anti-Criminal Transfer of Proceeds violations saw the highest percentage of perpetrators responding to dark job postings on social media platforms, including X (formerly Twitter), at 988 people, or 65, 2% Social networks are frequently abused to recruit people to open and sell bank accounts used to transfer the proceeds of crime.

Other offenses involving black recruitment included offenses against organized crime at 41.2% or 70 people, fraud at 38.3% or 492 people, theft at 31.7% (126 people) and robbery at 25.6% (34 people).

Between September 2021 and October this year, there were 102 cases of robbery, theft, trespassing and related crimes in 22 prefectures. A total of 266 people were arrested or investigated. Many of these cases are also believed to involve perpetrators recruited through dark part-time postings.

(Japanese original by Masakatsu Yamasaki, Tokyo City News Department)