Of 2,338 people arrested for special fraud in 2025, only 69 were main perpetrators; 1,379 were money collectors.
Back to the trend of the day: Tokyo gang member accused of sending young women to scam centers abroad (in Japanese)
Poly Rating · from the trend of the day
Cambodia Scam Center Arrests 2026: 10 Japan Links
Police believe one Poipet base staffed by 29 Japanese took at least ¥1.4 billion, yet Japan's ¥236 billion in special-fraud losses for 2026 has no line for calls made from abroad.
- No. 1: Cambodia scam crackdown: 624 sites raided
- 9 places
01Final list
The leading AIs each built their own list of ten independently. Here is one result that is easy to check: every place has a reason, a source, and the list of AIs that included it.
Order: from most to least AI agreement.
A bright badge means this AI put the entry on its list. A dim badge means it did not.
- 1
Cambodia scam crackdown: 624 sites raided
Cambodia raided 624 sites and counts 58,266 foreigners rescued and deported. It publishes no breakdown for Japanese nationals, so none of this can be tied to losses in Japan.
Included it: Claude, ChatGPT, StepFun, DeepSeek. Did not include: Meta, Nova, Wenxin.In their lists: Claude: 8 · ChatGPT: 3 · StepFun: 9 · DeepSeek: 10
What each AI noted 4
- Claudeplace 8
The detainees came from 23 nationalities, more than 3,400 of them Chinese, but the reports I found gave no Japanese count.
Source ↗ - ChatGPTplace 3
Authorities said they raided 624 sites and rescued and deported 58,266 foreigners; both counts measure enforcement activity, not Japanese-linked losses or victim status.
Source ↗ - StepFunplace 9
Cambodia investigated 793 suspected scam locations, raided 624 and detained roughly 30,000 people - the enforcement wave that produced every Japanese deportation on this list.
Source ↗ - DeepSeekplace 10
The most-quoted crackdown number bundles victims and suspects: 22,045 of the 58,266 were confirmed as directly involved in online scams.
Source ↗
4 AIs put it here - 2
Japan special-fraud losses: ¥236.07 billion, Jan-Aug 2026
Special-fraud losses reached ¥236.07 billion in the first eight months of 2026, already above all of 2025 (¥142.3 billion). No figure says how much was called from abroad.
Included it: Claude, ChatGPT, StepFun, DeepSeek. Did not include: Meta, Nova, Wenxin.In their lists: Claude: 6 · ChatGPT: 1 · StepFun: 5 · DeepSeek: 8
What each AI noted 4
- Claudeplace 6
A record, nearly double the year before (up 98%), about ¥390 million lost per day.
Source ↗ - ChatGPTplace 1
Special-fraud losses reached ¥142.3 billion in 2025, nearly doubling year over year, but the NPA total does not identify which losses came from overseas compounds.
Source ↗ - StepFunplace 5
29,687 recognised cases and 236.07 billion yen lost in eight months - roughly 1 billion yen a day - and the police cannot say how much of it was dialled from abroad.
Source ↗ - DeepSeekplace 8
Japan's special-fraud losses nearly doubled to ¥142.3 billion in 2025, but this national total does not say how much came from overseas bases.
Source ↗
4 AIs put it here - 3
19 Japanese deported from Sihanoukville, Cambodia
19 Japanese suspects were flown home from Sihanoukville to face Tokyo warrants. Al Jazeera dates this to April 2023, while other reports say April 2025 or April 2026, so these may be repeat cases.
Included it: Claude, StepFun, DeepSeek. Did not include: ChatGPT, Meta, Nova, Wenxin.In their lists: Claude: 3 · StepFun: 3 · DeepSeek: 4
What each AI noted 3
- Claudeplace 3
Tokyo police held warrants for all 19 before they were flown home after a January Sihanoukville raid.
Source ↗ - StepFunplace 3
Twenty-nine Japanese nationals arrested on suspicion of trying to defraud people in Japan from a base in northwestern Cambodia - the clearest case of Cambodian geography, Japanese victims.
Source ↗ - DeepSeekplace 4
Nineteen Japanese men, aged 25–55, were sent home from Sihanoukville and arrested by Tokyo police over scams targeting Japanese residents.
Source ↗
3 AIs put it here - 4
2 women sent from Tokyo's Kabukicho to a Cambodia scam center
Reported 20 October 2026: a Sumiyoshi-kai gang member allegedly sent two young women from the Toyoko hangout to Cambodia. The recruiting happened in Tokyo and the compound was abroad. The charge is still an allegation.
Included it: ChatGPT, StepFun, DeepSeek. Did not include: Claude, Meta, Nova, Wenxin.In their lists: ChatGPT: 4 · StepFun: 2 · DeepSeek: 7
What each AI noted 3
- ChatGPTplace 4
The Asahi-reported case centers on two women allegedly sent from Kabukicho to Cambodia—the clearest direct Japan-to-compound connection in the prompt, but only an allegation at arrest stage.
- StepFunplace 2
A Sumiyoshi-kai member is accused of sending two young women from Toyoko, a Kabukicho youth hangout, to Cambodia - Japan's own organised crime now charged with feeding the compounds.
Source ↗ - DeepSeekplace 7
Two young women from a Tokyo youth hangout were allegedly sent to a Cambodian scam base by a Sumiyoshi-kai member — the case reported today.
Source ↗
3 AIs put it here - 5
13 Japanese deported after Cambodia's Bavet raid
A November 2025 raid in Bavet detained 13 Japanese among more than 50 foreigners. All 13 were sent home and arrested in January 2026 in a fake-police fraud case.
Included it: Claude, DeepSeek. Did not include: ChatGPT, Meta, Nova, StepFun, Wenxin.In their lists: Claude: 4 · DeepSeek: 3
What each AI noted 2
- Claudeplace 4
A joint squad arrested 13 people moved from Cambodia in a fake-police fraud case, and a 53-year-old man tied to that case was arrested in October 2026 (per Japanese-language reports).
Source ↗ - DeepSeekplace 3
A November 2025 raid in Bavet detained 13 Japanese; they were deported and arrested in Japan in January 2026.
Source ↗
2 AIs put it here - 6
25 Japanese scam suspects deported from Cambodia
Cambodia deported 25 Japanese suspects, and police arrested them aboard a Japanese plane, citing at least $1.6 million taken from mostly elderly victims. Sources disagree on the date.
Included it: Claude, StepFun. Did not include: ChatGPT, Meta, Nova, DeepSeek, Wenxin.In their lists: Claude: 2 · StepFun: 4
What each AI noted 2
- Claudeplace 2
Arrested in the air: because the plane was Japanese, police made the arrests once it took off, citing at least US$1.6 million taken from mostly elderly victims.
Source ↗ - StepFunplace 4
Twenty-five Japanese suspects deported from Cambodia to Japan, on top of 19 in April 2025 - the enforcement chain that turns Cambodian raids into Japanese arrests.
Source ↗
2 AIs put it here - 7
2 Japanese freed from a Myanmar scam compound
An example from beyond Cambodia: on 5 October 2026, Thai police took custody of two Japanese men from a compound in Payathonzu. A social-media job ad had led them to a broker.
Included it: StepFun. Did not include: Claude, ChatGPT, Meta, Nova, DeepSeek, Wenxin.In their lists: StepFun: 1
What each AI noted 1
- StepFunplace 1
Two Japanese men lured by a social-media job ad, handed to a broker and taken into protective custody from a Chinese-led compound in Payathonzu, Karen State - the tightest Japan-to-compound link on record this month.
Source ↗
1 AIs put it here - 8
Fake-police scams in Japan: 11,014 cases in 2025
Fake-police fraud, the scheme run from the Bavet base, more than doubled to 11,014 cases and ¥100.5 billion in 2025. Police tables do not separate out calls made from abroad.
Included it: Claude. Did not include: ChatGPT, Meta, Nova, StepFun, DeepSeek, Wenxin.In their lists: Claude: 5
What each AI noted 1
- Claudeplace 5
The scam type most tied to overseas bases more than doubled to 11,014 cases and about ¥100.5 billion.
Source ↗
1 AIs put it here - 9
13 Japanese arrested in Indonesia phone-scam case
AP reported 13 Japanese men arrested in West Java over a cross-border phone scam aimed at Japan. A separate case in Surabaya led to 44 arrests.
Included it: ChatGPT. Did not include: Claude, Meta, Nova, StepFun, DeepSeek, Wenxin.In their lists: ChatGPT: 6
What each AI noted 1
- ChatGPTplace 6
AP described Japanese-targeting cross-border scam arrests in Indonesia, including 13 Japanese men in West Java in March; the article also reports a separate Surabaya arrest of 44 suspects.
Source ↗
1 AIs put it here
02Worth knowing
What the AIs noticed while building the list.
Japanese returnees told police they had been lured with promises of high pay and watched by Chinese supervisors, yet they were arrested as suspects. The 2026 TIP report lists no Japanese citizen identified as a trafficking victim.
Japan's record ¥324.11 billion (about US$2.1 billion) is roughly 2% of the low end of UNODC's US$88.3-114.1 billion regional estimate. This is a calculation across two different scopes.
Police counts are a floor: of Japanese adults who lost money to a scam, only 18% reported it to police, according to a 1,200-person survey.
03How we counted
In plain words, no formulas.
1The question
Top 10 Numbers That Link Japan's Phone-Scam Losses to Scam Centers in Cambodia and Beyond
2Why this topic
It puts Japan's victim losses and foreign enforcement on one page, so the reader can see where the two meet and where the chain is still unproven.
3Where it applies
Japan and the Southeast Asian countries where scams aimed at Japan have been run
4What we looked at
- Scale of harm recorded in Japan: special-fraud cases, losses and arrests
- Scale of enforcement abroad: raids, detentions, and Japanese nationals deported or sent home
- How clearly each figure ties a Japanese victim or suspect to an overseas operation, kept separate from figures that count only activity in the destination country
- Japan National Police Agency, special-fraud statistics — Recognized special-fraud cases, losses and arrests in Japan. These figures do not record where the calls came from.
- Japanese prefectural and Tokyo police case reports — Individual cases of Japanese suspects or victims sent home from overseas scam bases
- Cambodian government figures as reported by AP — Raids, detentions, rescues and deportations in the 2025-26 crackdown, with no breakdown by nationality for Japan
- UNODC, Transnational Organized Crime Threat Assessment 2026 — Estimated 2025 scam losses across East and South-East Asia, Australia and New Zealand, given as a range
- U.S. Department of State, TIP Report 2026: Japan — Whether Japan identified any of its own citizens as trafficking victims
5Who ranked
The leading AIs, each building its own list of ten independently and naming a source for every place: Claude, ChatGPT, Meta, Nova, StepFun, DeepSeek, Wenxin.
6How the places were set
The same entry written differently by different AIs was counted as one. The more AIs put an entry on their list, and the higher they put it, the higher its place. "AI agreement" shows how many of the AIs had it on their own list. Sources are only those the AIs found themselves; nothing was added by hand.
04Each AI's own list
🇺🇸 Claude10 places · 4 notes
The same question, answered by Claude alone. The final list above combines all the AIs.
- 1Aichi police case: 29 Japanese arrested after Poipet, Cambodia (August 2025)
The closest link between a Japanese loss and a specific base: 29 people, about ¥1.4 billion believed taken by May 2025, with 80 Japanese officers sent to bring them back.
Source ↗ - 2Japanese nationals deported from Cambodia: 25 on a Japanese charter flight
Arrested in the air: because the plane was Japanese, police made the arrests once it took off, citing at least US$1.6 million taken from mostly elderly victims.
Source ↗ - 3Japanese nationals deported from Cambodia: 19 men (April 2023)
Tokyo police held warrants for all 19 before they were flown home after a January Sihanoukville raid.
Source ↗ - 4Tokyo and Kanagawa case: 13 Japanese moved from Cambodia (January 2026)
A joint squad arrested 13 people moved from Cambodia in a fake-police fraud case, and a 53-year-old man tied to that case was arrested in October 2026 (per Japanese-language reports).
Source ↗ - 5Police-impersonation cases in Japan, 2025
The scam type most tied to overseas bases more than doubled to 11,014 cases and about ¥100.5 billion.
Source ↗ - 6Japan special fraud 2025: losses of ¥142.3 billion
A record, nearly double the year before (up 98%), about ¥390 million lost per day.
Source ↗ - 7Japan special fraud arrests 2025: 2,338 suspects
Of 2,338 suspects, 1,379 were money collectors and only 69 were main perpetrators, which shows why the organisers abroad are rarely reached.
Source ↗ - 8Cambodia 2026 crackdown detentions: 5,771 suspects in 98 raids
The detainees came from 23 nationalities, more than 3,400 of them Chinese, but the reports I found gave no Japanese count.
Source ↗ - 9Cambodia foreign deportations and departures, 2025-2026
Roughly 300,000 foreigners were arrested, deported or left, but only 18,864 were deported for cyber fraud, so the headline mixes very different things.
Source ↗ - 10UNODC regional fraud losses: US$88.3-114.1 billion in 2025
Region-wide, not Japan-specific: the range is more than double the 2024 estimate of US$18-37 billion, though the scope may differ.
Source ↗
What Claude noticed
Japanese nationals are both suspects and recruits: Aichi police heard returnees say they were lured by 'high income' promises and watched by about eight Chinese supervisors, yet they were arrested.
Cash found on the 29 suspects at repatriation was at most about ¥2,700, against about ¥1.4 billion allegedly taken by the base.
Special-fraud losses in Japan nearly doubled in 2025 (+98%), and police-impersonation cases alone more than doubled to 11,014.
Reports on the 20 October 2026 Tokyo arrest of a Sumiyoshi-kai-linked man accused of sending young women to Cambodia did not appear in my searches, so I have not used it as a figure.
🇺🇸 ChatGPT10 places · 2 notes
The same question, answered by ChatGPT alone. The final list above combines all the AIs.
- 1Japan special fraud losses, 2025
Special-fraud losses reached ¥142.3 billion in 2025, nearly doubling year over year, but the NPA total does not identify which losses came from overseas compounds.
Source ↗ - 2Japan special fraud losses, 2026 through August
Provisional NPA figures put losses at ¥236.1 billion in the first eight months of 2026, but attribution to Southeast Asian compounds is not supplied.
Source ↗ - 3Cambodia scam crackdown, 2025–26
Authorities said they raided 624 sites and rescued and deported 58,266 foreigners; both counts measure enforcement activity, not Japanese-linked losses or victim status.
Source ↗ - 4Tokyo recruitment case linked to Cambodia, 2026
The Asahi-reported case centers on two women allegedly sent from Kabukicho to Cambodia—the clearest direct Japan-to-compound connection in the prompt, but only an allegation at arrest stage.
- 5Malaysia phone-scam raid targeting Japan, 2026
Nine Japanese nationals were among 13 people arrested in Malaysia in a suspected operation targeting Japanese victims.
Source ↗ - 6Indonesia cross-border phone-scam arrests, 2026
AP described Japanese-targeting cross-border scam arrests in Indonesia, including 13 Japanese men in West Java in March; the article also reports a separate Surabaya arrest of 44 suspects.
Source ↗ - 7Japan special fraud cases, 2025
The 27,832 recognized cases mark the scale of harm recorded at home, but do not identify how many victims were contacted by operators based abroad.
Source ↗ - 8Japan SNS investment and romance fraud, 2025
The NPA recorded ¥55.22 billion in losses from SNS romance fraud in 2025, a separate category from special fraud that should not be added without checking definitions.
Source ↗ - 9Cambodia: people detained in scam crackdown, 2026
Cambodia’s first-half 2026 report counted 20,926 detained suspects at 488 locations, but does not state how many were Japanese or victims of trafficking.
Source ↗ - 10Regional scam losses estimated by UNODC, 2025
UNODC’s $88.3–114.1 billion estimate is global scam losses, not losses to Japanese victims and not a count of compound workers.
Source ↗
What ChatGPT noticed
Japan’s special-fraud losses nearly doubled to ¥142.3 billion in 2025, but the national total is not an overseas-operation attribution table.
Cambodia’s 58,266 rescued-and-deported figure and 3,477 pretrial arrests are distinct categories; neither says how many people were recognized as trafficking victims.
🇺🇸 Nova10 places · 3 notes
The same question, answered by Nova alone. The final list above combines all the AIs.
- 1Cambodia
Over 2,100 arrests in recent crackdowns, with Japanese victims and suspects directly linked to Cambodian operations
Source ↗ - 2Myanmar
Japanese nationals detained and extradited from Myanmar bases; operations directly linked to Japanese losses
Source ↗ - 3Philippines
52 Japanese detained at a single base in 2019; direct link between Philippine operations and Japanese losses
Source ↗ - 4Thailand
Luxury high-rise condominiums host scam masters; Japanese victims targeted through sophisticated psychological ploys
Source ↗ - 5Vietnam
Border areas and urban centers host compounds; Japanese victims report confinement and forced scamming
Source ↗ - 6Malaysia
Japanese nationals detained and extradited from Malaysian bases; operations directly linked to Japanese losses
Source ↗ - 7Laos
Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone hosts massive compounds; Japanese victims report starvation and torture
Source ↗ - 8South Korea
Fake account impersonating Bank of Korea Governor lures users into investment groups
Source ↗ - 9China
Mastermind of the Cambodia-based ring is suspected to be a Chinese national
Source ↗ - 10Taiwan
Taiwanese supervisors manage scam operations in Cambodia targeting Japanese victims
Source ↗
What Nova noticed
Japanese victims are often targeted with sophisticated psychological ploys, such as impersonating police officers
Over 2,100 arrests in recent crackdowns, yet the scale of operations continues to grow
Japanese nationals are often lured with false promises of high income and end up trapped in forced scamming
🇨🇳 StepFun10 places · 3 notes
The same question, answered by StepFun alone. The final list above combines all the AIs.
- 12 Japanese students freed from a Myanmar scam compound (October 2026)
Two Japanese men lured by a social-media job ad, handed to a broker and taken into protective custody from a Chinese-led compound in Payathonzu, Karen State - the tightest Japan-to-compound link on record this month.
Source ↗ - 22 young women sent from Kabukicho to Cambodia (October 2026)
A Sumiyoshi-kai member is accused of sending two young women from Toyoko, a Kabukicho youth hangout, to Cambodia - Japan's own organised crime now charged with feeding the compounds.
Source ↗ - 329 Japanese arrested over scam calls from a Cambodian base
Twenty-nine Japanese nationals arrested on suspicion of trying to defraud people in Japan from a base in northwestern Cambodia - the clearest case of Cambodian geography, Japanese victims.
Source ↗ - 425 Japanese nationals deported from Cambodia (November 2025)
Twenty-five Japanese suspects deported from Cambodia to Japan, on top of 19 in April 2025 - the enforcement chain that turns Cambodian raids into Japanese arrests.
Source ↗ - 5236.07 billion yen: Japan's special-fraud losses, January-August 2026
29,687 recognised cases and 236.07 billion yen lost in eight months - roughly 1 billion yen a day - and the police cannot say how much of it was dialled from abroad.
Source ↗ - 6324.11 billion yen: Japan's record fraud losses, 2025
A record 324.11 billion yen (about US$2.1 billion) lost to special fraud, romance and social-media investment scams in 2025 - and only about 2 per cent of the low end of the regional total.
Source ↗ - 70 Japanese citizens identified as trafficking victims (2026 TIP Report)
Japan identified foreign trafficking victims but not a single Japanese citizen - even as Thai and Japanese officers were pulling Japanese students out of Karen State compounds.
Source ↗ - 8US$88.3-114.1 billion: UNODC's 2025 Asia-Pacific scam-loss estimate
UNODC put 2025 scam losses across East Asia, South-East Asia, Australia and New Zealand at US$88.3-114.1 billion - the pool Japan's record losses sit inside, with no country-level split for Japan.
Source ↗ - 9624 compounds raided, about 30,000 detained in Cambodia (July 2025-August 2026)
Cambodia investigated 793 suspected scam locations, raided 624 and detained roughly 30,000 people - the enforcement wave that produced every Japanese deportation on this list.
Source ↗ - 108.13 billion yen: Japan's gold-bar scam losses in H1 2026
Gold-bar scams cost Japanese victims 8.13 billion yen in six months, already above the 6.02 billion yen for all of 2025 - a purely domestic harm figure that says nothing about where the call came from.
Source ↗
What StepFun noticed
Japan's record fraud bill is small change regionally: 324.11 billion yen is about US$2.1 billion, roughly 2 per cent of the low end of UNODC's US$88.3-114.1 billion estimate for 2025 losses across East Asia, South-East Asia, Australia and New Zealand.
Japan's own protection record is the weak link: the 2026 TIP Report lists foreign trafficking victims but zero Japanese citizens, while Hong Kong's entire identified victim count - 15 people - consisted of residents forced to work in compounds in Myanmar and Cambodia.
Surveys and police statistics measure different things: 22 per cent of 1,200 Japanese adults told GASA they had encountered a scam in the past year, but only 1 per cent reported a financial loss and just 18 per cent of those scammed went to the police - so official case counts are a floor, not a total.
🇨🇳 DeepSeek10 places · 3 notes
The same question, answered by DeepSeek alone. The final list above combines all the AIs.
- 1¥1.4 billion — Japan losses tied to a Poipet-based group
The clearest single bridge: a Cambodia base, 29 Japanese suspects and at least ¥1.4 billion stolen from victims in Japan.
- 229 — Japanese deported from Cambodia and arrested over the Poipet operation
Twenty-nine Japanese were flown home and arrested; police say they worked in groups under Chinese managers, calling Japan from Cambodia.
- 313 — Japanese deported after the Bavet raid
A November 2025 raid in Bavet detained 13 Japanese; they were deported and arrested in Japan in January 2026.
Source ↗ - 419 — Japanese deported from Sihanoukville in April 2026
Nineteen Japanese men, aged 25–55, were sent home from Sihanoukville and arrested by Tokyo police over scams targeting Japanese residents.
Source ↗ - 512 — Japanese rescued from a Cambodian casino compound
Twelve Japanese were rescued after several asked the embassy for help; police described them as likely trafficking victims, not offenders.
- 61 — Japanese man rescued in Phnom Penh and reported as a trafficking victim
A single rescue in Phnom Penh, with reports that the man had been moved across provinces for trafficking purposes.
Source ↗ - 72 — women from Tokyo's Toyoko district allegedly sent to Cambodia
Two young women from a Tokyo youth hangout were allegedly sent to a Cambodian scam base by a Sumiyoshi-kai member — the case reported today.
Source ↗ - 8¥142.3 billion — Japan's total special-fraud losses in 2025
Japan's special-fraud losses nearly doubled to ¥142.3 billion in 2025, but this national total does not say how much came from overseas bases.
Source ↗ - 927,832 — reported special-fraud cases in Japan in 2025
Cases rose 32.3% to 27,832, yet only 69 masterminds were among 2,338 people arrested.
Source ↗ - 1058,266 — Cambodia's 'rescued and deported' foreigners
The most-quoted crackdown number bundles victims and suspects: 22,045 of the 58,266 were confirmed as directly involved in online scams.
Source ↗
What DeepSeek noticed
Among 2,338 people arrested for special fraud in Japan in 2025, only 69 were main perpetrators and 414 were gang members or associates — the people answering phones abroad are a small, replaceable layer.
UNODC's regional scam-loss estimate of $88.3–$114.1 billion for 2025 is more than three times its 2023 estimate, showing how fast the industry has grown beyond any single bilateral case.
Cambodia's 58,266 figure is often reported as a rescue total, but 22,045 were confirmed as scam workers — a reminder that deportation numbers cannot be used as a proxy for victim protection.