TOKYO -- Japan's National Police Agency (NPA) is alerting the public about an increase in scams in which perpetrators spoof the phone numbers of actual police stations and prefectural police headquarters and falsely tell victims they are under investigation.

A total of 1,039 cases of special fraud involving people posing as police officers were confirmed between January and February this year (preliminary figures), with damages amounting to roughly 10.6 billion yen (around $71.4 million).

The perpetrators use the tactic of telling victims they are suspects in an investigation, and get them to transfer money in the name of financial checks among other things. The NPA says that if you receive such a call, hang up and call the "#9110" support line.

According to the NPA, 848 calls have been confirmed in connection with police number-spoofing frauds. Of these, 788 appeared to be from Shinjuku Police Station of Tokyo's Metropolitan Police Department (MPD). There were also numbers for police stations in Aichi Prefecture, Hokkaido and other areas, and 610 calls disguised as police headquarters numbers, including 171 from the MPD and 94 from Hyogo Prefectural Police.

There has also been a rise in calls from numbers ending in -0110, a suffix often used by legitimate police. There were five such cases in January 2024, but since around last summer there has been a sharp increase, with 1,177 cases this January and 2,239 in February.

Many cases of wire fraud in recent years have employed numbers beginning with a plus sign, which indicates international calls, but there are also reportedly cases of spoofed numbers without these.

According to the NPA, software and apps that can change the user's number displayed to those they call are spreading overseas. The agency will work with the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, service providers and others on ways to counter this.

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