Monero Probe Leads to ¥100M Fraud Arrest

A suspected ¥100 million credit card fraud kingpin has reportedly been arrested for the first time in Japan due to an investigation focusing on Monero

A mastermind suspected of making ¥100 million in losses from using stolen credit cards was apprehended following a combined investigation by Japan’s National Police Agency’s Cyber Special Investigation Unit, Nikkei Asia has discovered.

A report claims that on October 21, the organization purportedly utilized Monero to launder money earned from their operations. Tracking Monero’s movement allowed investigators to identify a suspect for the first time in Japan using this kind of data. But it’s still unclear exactly how the tracing was carried out.

Kobayashi is charged with defrauding the platform of ¥2.75 million in sales rewards by allegedly selling counterfeit goods on an online marketplace and faking 42 transactions between June and July 2021 using stolen credit card credentials. Investigators estimate that between June 2021 and January 2022, the group used around 900 fraudulent transactions, most likely utilizing credit card information taken through phishing techniques.

Sixteen members of the group—which advertised “black market jobs” on social media and used encrypted messaging applications to communicate—have been taken into custody by the authorities. The authorities categorize the group as an “anonymous, fluid crime syndicate.”

Authorities have issued warnings, and Monero is under more scrutiny.
The arrest occurs when Monero is under growing strain due to many delistings from European centralized exchanges. Due to legal developments, Kraken announced at the beginning of October that it would stop accepting deposits and trading Monero in the European Economic Area.

Since 2018, Japan’s Financial Services Agency has been closely examining cryptocurrencies with a privacy focus and has urged local exchanges to stop supporting Monero, Zcash, and other cryptocurrencies to reduce money laundering and crimes. Early in 2024, analysts from the French blockchain analytics company Kaiko revealed that as cryptocurrency exchanges kept removing assets like Monero and Zcash from their listings, market liquidity for privacy tokens had reached all-time lows.