Their tactics keep growing malicious and sophisticated, as exemplified as the recent use of mobile banking (banking services allowing transactions with banks using cell phone screens).

Note 1: People with close connections to the former Goryokai under the aegis of the crime syndicate Yamaguchi-gumi organized large-scale black-market finance operations from around 1988 through 2003, and concealed vast amounts of profits at home and abroad.

2: In June 2003, a housewife in Yao City, Osaka Prefecture, could not bear relentless collection by black-market finance operators and committed suicide with her husband and other relatives by jumping onto railroad tracks.

3: Offenses including violations of the Investment Deposit and Interest Rate Act and the Act on Control of Moneylending as well as cases of frauds, extortion and violence related to the Act on Control of Moneylending.

Table 3 Status of Clearances of Black-Market Finance Offenses (1999-2008)

Year	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008
Category
Number of offenses cleared (cases)	149	168	210	238	556	432	339	323	484	437
No. of suspects arrested (persons)	321	461	517	446	1,246	919	706	710	995	860
Number of victims (persons)	62,758	49,663	79,454	122,115	321,841	279,389	173,399	154,511	148,543	141,394
Amount of damage	¥18,076.59 million	¥16,036.09 million	¥18,675.10 million	¥15,983.84 million	¥32,236.39 million	¥34,827.75 million	¥23,778.04 million	¥19,975.36 million	¥30,389.98 million	¥29,333.78 million

## (4) Current Status of Internet-Based Frauds

With the development of information and communication technology (ICT), the Internet has become an accessible tool people can utilize casually, but at the same time frauds that take advantage of the Internet are also occurring. Tactics of such frauds are growing more vicious and sophisticated, as seen in the use of other people’s ID and passwords obtained illegally using such highly sophisticated techniques as phishing $ ^{1} $ and spyware $ ^{2} $ .

Diagram 7 No. of Cleared Frauds Involving Crimes Using Networks (2004-2008)

## 1 ) Frauds that take advantage of Internet auctions

Internet auctions are widely used due to the convenience of casual participation. On the other hand, many cases of fraud damage have been reported in recent years in which successful bidders in the auctions never received merchandise they bid for even after they paid in payments and thus were defrauded out of money. Since 2005, auction-related frauds have accounted for over 75% of frauds cleared that involve crimes taking advantage of networks $ ^{3} $ . There are also cases where money was defrauded through the following malicious tactics:

· Pretend to be someone else by obtaining other people’s ID and passwords through illegal means and put up fictitious products on the block; and

· Pose as a person who put up products in the auction and approach to people who were unable to make successful bids for them via e-mail for direct transactions.

## 2 ) Computer-aided frauds taking advantage of Internet banking service

Internet banking service offers the convenience of casually making transactions with banks without actually going to bank counters. In recent years, however, there have been a rising number of reports about damage from computer-aided frauds, which abuse the service and transfer funds out of other people’s deposit accounts using other people’s ID and passwords obtained via illegal means.

Note 1: Practices of sending e-mail posing as someone from a financial institution and inducing e-mail recipients to access to a bogus website and type in their ID and passwords, thereby obtaining them illegally.

2: Programs that can retrieve information stored on computer hard disks, information typed in by keyboards and information on display screens and leak these information.

3: Crimes that make use of advanced information and