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Intro: Japan Police have arrested four culprits who duped people via AI technology while running some Ponzi scheme. Around 20,000 people have been duped by them.
Technology makes everyone tech-savvy and with this technology, one can make or break the system. In one of the incidents that have happened in Japan, four masterminds have been detained by the police officials for duping people.
These four men were arrested by Japan’s Aichi Prefecture for running an illegal fraudulent crypto investment scheme. The scheme had lured many investors so that they could reap the benefits of their returns based on an Artificial Intelligence led trading system (AI).
As per the report by the local newspaper of Japan, there are around 20,000 people who have been duped by this scheme. The scheme raised an estimated total of 6 billion yen ($55million).
Duping the investors via AI system
Shoji Ishida, Yukihiro Yamashita, Takuya Hashiyada, and Masamichi Toshima were the suspects arrested on July 12. The four criminals who run the scam ‘Oz Project’ promised that the investors will receive 100 % return on their initial investment. The project was running on an AI system.
The criminals assured investors a profit of two and a half times its original value over the course of four months. The investors filed criminal charges against the culprits seeking damages in Nagoya and Tokyo.
To bring the investors into confidence for the scheme, there was a dedicated member who held seminars and briefings for the participants and encouraged them to create and engage the dedicated group of investors on the popular Japanese messaging app LINE.
This new strategy taken by the culprits has given confidence to the participants to rope in their friends and relatives to the scheme.
Criminal charges against perpetrators
Before arresting these culprits, there were also other criminal charges filed against them with the prefectural police as early as September 2019. These culprits belonged to Nagoya.
The police were also searching the suspects’ properties to find the evidence.
Technology and its impact
The technologies like AI and other new ones are continued to be misused by some malign actors for their vested interests, schemes to dupe the innocents while offering Asa seductive appeal to their Ponzi schemes. But this is not all. These technologies can also be used for the benefit of society at large.
These technologies can also be used to target such criminals. Dubai Police in 2018 had successfully traced a gang who duped a $1.9 million armed bitcoin heist. The smart program and AI technology have helped the police to put the perpetrators behind the bar.
In the UK also, the advertising standards authority has revealed that it is increasing its capacity to track suspect crypto ads online with the use of technologies like AI and scraping.
Andrew is a blockchain developer who developed his interest in cryptocurrencies while pursuing his post-graduation major in blockchain development. He is a keen observer of details and shares his passion for writing, along with coding. His backend knowledge about blockchain helps him give a unique perspective to his writing skills, and a reliable craft at explaining the concepts such as blockchain programming, languages and token minting. He also frequently shares technical details and performance indicators of ICOs and IDOs.
