elderly people face to face, such as rounds of regular home visits and traffic safety education sessions.

Police are also making efforts to secure the effectiveness of measures against Furikome frauds by obtaining the understanding and cooperation of elderly people through explanations about ways to prevent damage in advance, such as the lowering of limits on amounts of money that can be handled via ATMs and urging them to take concrete action.

### c. Prevention activities in cooperation with relevant business operators

Given that in Furikome frauds (extortion), the bulk of defrauded money is transferred to perpetrators through ATMs and over counters of financial institutions, it is important for employees of financial institutions or convenience stores to talk to potential victims or make reports to police in order to prevent damage. For this reason, police are urging financial institutions and convenience stores to encourage their employees to actively talk to potential victims of suspected Furikome fraud (extortion) cases and make reports to police.

Police are also seeking to strengthen cooperation for the promotion of measures against Furikome frauds by conducting exchanges of information and opinions on a continuous basis with related institutions and organizations.

Furthermore, in order to prevent damage from Furikome frauds (extortion) and also minimize the damage should fraud attempts succeed, police are urging financial institutions to introduce and improve systems for surveillance of deposit accounts being abused for Furikome frauds (extortion), facilitate the lowering of limits on money handled via ATMs, and introduce equipment that makes it impossible to use cell phones at places where ATMs are installed.

Given the recent rise in fraud tactics where perpetrators have victims send cash to designated private mail boxes using EXPACK parcel delivery service, police are striving to prevent damage from Furikome frauds (extortion) in cooperation with postal service operators by asking them to provide information on private mail boxes used in crimes and give heads-up to senders of mail matter to such private mail boxes.

Since public-private coordinated efforts are essential, police present certificates of appreciation to related business operators that have greatly contributed to the development and administration of measures against Furikome frauds.

## 5 ) Cleanout of perpetrating tools

Since Furikome frauds (extortion) are crimes repeatedly carried out systematically by criminal groups using cell phones and deposit accounts under fictitious or other people’s names, it is important to take steps to clean out these perpetrating tools with the understanding and cooperation of users at large and related business operators.

### a. Stronger confirmation of customer identification

As for cell phones, service operators enhance the effectiveness of customer confirmation by limiting methods of payments for usage fees, in principle, to credit cards and automatic money transfers from customers' deposit accounts and confirming credit cards or cash cards presented by customers over their counters.

For deposit accounts, financial institutions enhance the effectiveness of customer confirmation by sending cash cards by way of recorded delivery to addresses written on identity verification documents submitted by customers when opening their accounts.

### b. Prevention of multiple cell phone contracts and deposit accounts for individuals

Each cell phone service provider, in principle, limits to five the number of phone circuits that can be contracted by an individual, while each financial institution, in principle, restricts to two or three the number of deposit accounts that can be opened by an individual.

### c. Sharing of information on unidentifiable parties to cell phone contracts and owners of frozen deposit accounts

As for cell phones, service providers share information on parties to cell phone contracts suspended because they refused to comply with identity confirmation requested by police, and are making use of the shared information in reinforcing the screening of customers at the time of contract.

As for bank deposit accounts, the National Police Agency has prepared a list of holders of deposit accounts frozen after being used for Furikome frauds (extortion) and provided the list to the Japanese Bankers Association and other relevant organizations so that related financial institutions can share the information. This is designed to prevent the opening of illicit accounts and facilitate the arrests of those involved, with financial institutions turning down requests for the opening of accounts when those on the list come to their counters to open new accounts and