Japanese police say money-laundering cases using digital currency or e-money payment services nearly tripled in 2019 from the previous year.
The National Police Agency says businesses offering e-money payment services reported a total of 3,913 suspected money-laundering cases last year. That's an increase of 2,522 from 2018 and is 2.8 times the figure recorded a year earlier.
Japan's e-money services have been under the spotlight after criminals used them to steal from bank accounts. Now officials say fraudulent withdrawals have expanded to another five payment firms.
Sources say one of them is PayPay, a subsidiary of mobile phone operator SoftBank. They say criminals used its services to make improper withdrawals from Japan Post Bank totaling 1.4 million yen, or about 13,400 dollars.
NHK has learned that 34 users of the e-money service of mobile carrier NTT Docomo have had a total of 10 million yen, or over 94 thousand dollars, illicitly withdrawn from their bank accounts as of Wednesday.
NTT Docomo says it will enter discussions on compensating the victims with the banks in question.
There are plenty of markets around the world that might not have a population that’s willing to shell out $1,000 for a smartphone. This is why there are companies that purely make cheap Android phones to sell to the masses. Obviously there are compromises when you make a cheap phone, such as using less premium materials or using lower-end hardware.
Unfortunately, it also seems that in some cases, you might end up compromising on security as well. According to a report from BuzzFeed News, it seems that there are cheap Chinese Android smartphones being sold in regions such as Africa where it has been discovered that these phones actually come preloaded with malware that will steal your money.
Sources say former Justice Minister Kawai Katsuyuki was found to have given money to local politicians in Hiroshima on multiple occasions to secure votes for his wife Kawai Anri, who won a seat in last July's Upper House election.
Both were formerly with the main ruling Liberal Democratic Party. They are suspected of giving a total of 25 million 700,000 yen or about 240,000 dollars to 94 local politicians and executives of their supporters' groups.
A survey has found that many Japanese nationals living overseas are being severely affected by the coronavirus pandemic.
A Japanese company, Locotabi, conducted a survey earlier this month of around 44,000 Japanese who live abroad and are registered with the firm as local guides. A total of 2,155 people from 94 countries and territories responded.
At the moment no one really knows how much Sony’s next-gen PS5 console will cost, but a listing on Amazon revealed that it could be priced starting at $450 and could go up to close to $600. Now according to the latest rumors, it seems that in terms of price, Microsoft could very well win on that front.
This comes from a user calling themselves Eastmen who posted on the Beyond3D forums (as reported by Dutch website Techtastic) claiming that the Xbox Series X could be priced at around $400, while the Xbox Series S could even hit price points as low as $200. The post claims that to cover their potential losses in hardware sales, Microsoft might be looking to take a bigger cut of game sales and subscriptions.
About a year ago, Hoonigan expanded its suite of multimedia offerings with the launch of Hoonigan Autofocus. The channel was formed out of a partnership with the wizard of automotive photography Larry Chen and focuses photography's relationship with the cars the cameras are pointed at. Each video features a new ride, and the most recent episode welcomes a custom-built Porsche Spyder with a boxer engine from Japan.
Purists will be thrown into a fit when examining this 1955 Porsche 550 Spyder recreation that is self-classified as "Outlawd Couture." It comes from Los Angeles-based automotive artist and car builder S Klub, who formerly built an outlaw Mercedes-Benz SL300 Gullwing. This build, along with a second 550 Spyder that had only one seat, first appeared at SEMA in 2019 and has since gone up for sale.