APPLICATION OF CPTED THEORY TO A NEW MODUS OPERANDI OF FRAUD (FURIKOME)

Over the last seven years Japan has successfully reduced crime overall, with the exception to this trend being crimes involving fraud. Fraud increased from 49,482 reported cases in 2002 to 67,787 in 2007. The reason for this was the rise of new modus operandi for fraud, namely furikome – a type of fraud involving bank transfers. Criminals who engage in furikome aim to cheat victims out of their money through telephone conversations. Con-artists, pretending to be family members, tax officials, or generous financial company executives call their targets and have them transfer money via ATM to bank accounts created by these criminals specifically for this purpose. Exhaustive investigation conducted by the police showed that the number of furikome crimes dropped gradually from 25,667 in 2004 to 17,930 in 2007. However, furikome crimes increased sharply to 20,481 in 2008, primarily because it was difficult to control the ways in which items such as mobile phones and bank accounts were being used as tools inthis type of crime. The massive number of ATM machines that need to be monitored posed a problem to conventional methods to combat this type of criminal activity. Therefore, the police and private sectors have cooperated to prevent criminals from using these ATMs for criminal purposes by applying CPTED (Crime Prevention though Environmental Design) theory. As a result of CPTED and police investigations, furikome crimes decreased dramatically, from 20,481 in 2008 to 7,340 in 2009. In this paper, comprehensive measures related to furikome taken by the police and private sectors are reviewed, the details of surveys questioning victims and the public at large are presented, and possible further measures to combat furikome are explored.