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A SCARS™ Guest Editorial By Catherine Saori Usui

The following is a Guest Editorial by Catherine Saori Usui – an Anti-Scam Victims Advocate living in Japan, A Professional Support Services Provider, An Aspiring Author, and A Romance Scam Survivor. Catherine plays a role in directly helping scam victims to recover, and is active in helping to build awareness of romance scams in Japan. She is also a member of the Society of Citizens Against Relationship Scams Inc.

Japan – The Romance Scammer’s Heaven

In Catherine’s Own Words [In English]:

Japan is recently claimed as the international romance scammer’s heaven, while the mystery of this phenomena is unveiled except “there are poor romance scammed middle age women mainly over 40th are increased” as a news stories.

As myself a romance scam victim in Japan, let me introduce some puzzle pieces of the condition why those fake US personnels, military doctor, highly sophisticated businessmen scammer succeed in getting money from poor Japanese romance scam victims so easily. Increase of romance scams contains not only needs of international legal and investigative system needed in urgent against those canny borderless scammer’s network. However, there’s each individual nation’s structural fundamental social problems might disturb the legal network “work” efficiently. I can say as a Japanese, our society has more trouble compare to other Asian nations to be co-related with rest of the globe by many reasons.

That’s My Theme On This Series: Romance Scam Victims Are Out Casted As A Drop Out From Peer Pressure

International romance victims in Japan often suffer self-blame, ashamed feeling, despaired and close their heart and soul. This society notify that romance scammed victims are often considered looser or failed to adopt into peer pressure social system – Japan.

In my individual case, an inspector came to me to find any new evident slip or case report to fill his day work. We were sitting at the foodcourt corner table at the shopping centre. He said “ You’re definitely romance scammed for sure. You aren’t any worthy to gain love from such a handsome man! “. Like any other Japanese man, his evaluation for a woman who are over aged to give a birth to a baby, raise a child, do all the housework, having regular work with good health and fantastic background are non-favourable and “an out of order” woman.

Japanese woman are generally enforced to be always self-humiliated or more I should say “self-depressed” once a woman turn to over age 30 to 35. Japanese man consider that praising woman’s effort will make her arrogant, saying thank you make her spoiled. Majority of woman wants man’s mind changed while extremists politicians have been encouraging to put more peer pressure to entire society to make Japan more “male dominant society”. In this condition, romance scam victims are chased into the two side pressures. She turned to believe on-line lover never exist because of being too tired for enforced self-humiliation as “over aged woman(“Obasan” in Japanese). But she cannot admire the advice of being scammed often Japanese man in any position gives her with unkind advice with some bully or abusive words included which might kill her soul when she has to face serious heartbreaking moment.  – Police Bureau hearing often causes “second rape affection” for the romance scammed victims.

There is no on-line romance scam or other net work scam reporting system in Japan police except “call to the local police, patient for long hours of hearing, let them make their format of hearing report filled police jargons”.

It means an ordinary citizen without having chance to be a policeman in Japan might not understand what an officer/inspector put on their hearing report of a romance scammed victim. Serious human right offences are done by police bureaus and the legal system. So many rape cases and incests committed by born father sentenced “guiltless” for victims are concerned to agree to have such a relationships under enforced drinking alcohol or drug mixed drink or heavily threaten condition.

Similar Condition Will Sure Happen To The Romance Scammed Victims

Because it is the legal tradition to ask for “two-side responsibility to blame” is the common sense “to maintain peace and order to this country”. An inspector I’ve met shown me four reports he “earned” from international romance victims, sighed “these reports are not well enough to apply the arrest mandate”. He wanted me to add another report, but I chose to report IC3.gov, Action Fraud UK and “ANYSCAM” site.

The police hearing report, evidences are term to keep for ten years as the police un-disclosed property in Japan. After Special Secret Protection Act was stated in 2013 allows “any prior national security information which might threat the national security should be kept under secrecy as long as any government ministries/bureaus wants to extend undesclosed”.

There’s no civil right for a romance scam victims to know the contents which was submitted on their report. Not only in romance scam or rape, but in other general crime reports also, victims are not allowed to know if the police bureau report contents are same as one said. There are more than thousands of false charge come out at the court trials thereby.

No victims of any crime can check the report for ten years once a victim stamped or signed and agreed to submit the report. There’s no right to keep a copy of the report once a victim submitted, nor right to proofread and confirm in advance for suspects.

On this procedure, inspectors/police officers do whatsoever they can to “set the case suitable for the individual inspector/police officer’s favour”. I personally decided not to humiliate myself going through more heartbreaking hearing by Tokyo Metropolitan Police Bureau (TMPB). TMPB also rejected the hearing from me, because I’ve already reported to other nation’s criminal reports on-line, keeping the copy of on-line reports. The inspector I’ve met said “your money won’t be back for sure. But you might want to do your national obligation to corp with the international romance scam investigation to fulfil the legal requirement to arrest. Don’t you want to punish those suspects? The case I hold is a Cameroonian living in my area.” He wasn’t even interested in other suspects out of Tokyo area.

Imagine you’re one of international romance scammed victim in Japan, who still want to believe in “loving one” hear this from a “kind inspector to make an hour trip to get a victims to give a good advice” with such a rude manner. He might have expected that some romance scam victim woman open their heart by his advice and say “oh thank you Mr. Inspector for your good advice to breaking my heart completely with such ill-bred words with rude manner”.

According to inspectors I’ve met, all romance scammed victims suffering financial difficulties. Others have huge dept to pay back. Some believes to be informed that her fake loving U.S. personnel fiancé was shot dead in the war country, suffering serious depression thereby. Even in this miserable situation, many victims may refuse to submit the report to local police in our given condition. Those romance scam victims cannot trust the Japan police by given social condition here, and this situation makes many romance victims to choose to put trust in scammers – like I once did.

This social condition along with human right ignorance is the one of reasons Japan is the arising nation of the romance scammer’s heaven. Scammers and police bureau are similar against humanity unless the case become very famous or suffer from the international pressure.

At this moment 2019, Japan government has been against/ignorant for over dozens of U.N. recommendation for the serious violation for human rights.

Visions Of Romance Scammers In Japan

Black man and woman are generally unwelcome in Japan among other foreigners such as caucuses and other Asian looks similar to Japanese. There are many legal residents whose married partner is Japanese or a foreign abroad students with valid student visa from various countries.

Those who’re applied for refugee by unavoidable reason are not allowed to work. Those possible refugees are either detained in the Tokyo Immigration Office or survive by the Japanese supporters’ donations who’re also not rich enough.

There’s scarce chance to find any kind of “near-legal” job such as night shift in dangerous metal work, various factories or convenience store, because “they are visually black and not fluent in Japanese”.

Skilled IT engineer graduated from Oxford University or famous TV “Gaijin” black entertainers might be sincere treated with suitable respects, but not for “ordinary black man and woman without extraordinary skills or background”.

Those Are The Possible International Romance Scammer’S Vision I Can Draw Now

Those “rejected gaijin (foreigner)” may often related or become a part/member of “colour gang(never means the skin colour, they have colourful flags of each gang team)” or “international network scammer”.

In February 2019, Fukuoka Prefectural Police Bureau arrested four international romance scammer for the first time in Japan. But those four are just a bite cut off of a tiny sucker cell to a huge octopus.

I asked the inspector of TMPB “why won’t you try to exterminate the international networks of the romance scammer?”. Then the inspector said “wow, we only work for “ to maintain peace and order to this country. International networks are non of our business”. In such kind of international net work scammer groups, there could be some evil Japanese living in overseas might be involved also.

Romance Scammer & Victims Supported By IT Technology

By the rapid progress of translation app between English and Japanese, daily conversation level translation/texting/speaking or even hearing became possible using a pad or smartphone/iPhone.

Majority of Japanese romance scammer benefited and victims are fraud via those translation app.

A scammer type English, translated into Japanese, then copy and paste to the e-mail or chat app window or easier. There are several ways both romance scammer & victims co-substituted on their “virtual love” for Japanese woman without having enough English communicative level ability.

(1) DATING SITE AND E-MAIL

Download the free translation app first. A romance scammer write a sweet melty love message suitable for a target often just copy & pasted from their manual page on-line. Then the scam target respond in Japanese. For dating site and e-mail, translation app language is almost perfect by various sample sentences.

(2) “LINE” APP

Majority of Japanese use “LINE” chat app to free talk, chat, to hand in the part-time job available day/time zone shift, even in some formal business scene while Face book, WhatsApp are commonly used in US, UK and EU area. Most Japanese doesn’t really know “LINE” is the strongest translation tool. Japanese prefer to use “LINE” because it never allows any other app from/to copy & paste. 

“LINE” app allow copy & paste only in “LINE” app itself. It means one cannot copy & paste from “google” or other translation app to “LINE.

Now, I’d strongly urge that any translation app is not strong enough to cover all the scholastic area, legal, business and political situation enough nor suitable to cover the efficient impressive writing skills. I’m writing this article by my own English ability with dictionaries, not substituted by any translation app.

Still, “LINE” is the one of the strongest app I’ve ever seen if I use it properly from English to/from Japanese for most of ordinary conversational phrases we use in everyday life.

This is how it works;

  • Open the “LINE” app, and go to “friend(Tomodachi)” page.
  • Search for “LINE English Translator” the public “non-personal AI friend” distributed by “LINE” company.
  • Add “LINE English Translator” to your friend and type any English or Japanese, then this “ AI friend” immediately respond for English to Japanese or Japanese to English translation.
  • Push a bit long on the translated chat column, and it will show “copy, keep, delete, transfer, report” above the chat column.

To take a trout to copy & paste to the victims’ chat column, select “copy” and paste in the victims’ window. Wow, you’ll be a perfect chat friend with fluent Japanese substituted by this translator “friend”.

If you make it a bit easier, or want to send same message to more than a several “loving ones”, choose transfer button! You’ll find a list of all friends on “LINE”. select the target “friends” a scammer want to transfer the same message. In this way, a romance scammer can corp with several “loving ones” at once.

Summary

IT and AI technology has been the ironical best friend of romance scammers in Japan. There are many Japanese young, middle aged and elders who want to study English communication skill which caused by less efficient standard of English studies in the school education system. Those who wants the language exchange friend, might be the “target market” for dark romance scammers.

As the conclusion, rapid increase of the romance scam victims in Japan in recent years may happened by the progress of IT and AI translator technology. Please bring me your feed back and critiques. I’d like to hear from various kinds of people in the world about what’s going on with in this closed nation.

About Catherine Saori Usui

Catherine Saori Usui is a woman who was romance scammed from Japan. As a Japanese victim fluent in Japanese, English, and Korean, I’d like to distribute the conditions and reality along with introduction of some Japanese social system, reality of romance victims, political authority system etc. from Japan, planning to write a novel on the huge scale of international romance scam I’ve experienced to let the world understands the what is the systematic network scammers deeply related to the global affairs.

By Catherine Saori Usui
Yamato, Kanagawa, Japan

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TAGS: Catherine Saori Usui, Yamato, Kanagawa, Japan, Scammer’s Heaven, Romance Scams, Scams In Japan, Japanese Police, Japanese Victims,

 


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Always report scams involving money lost or where you received money to:

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Japan - The Romance Scammer’s Heaven - A SCARS™ Guest Editorial By Catherine Saori Usui 3

 

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Published On: April 25th, 2019Last Updated: March 24th, 2022Categories: ♦ ABOUT SCAMMERS/FRAUDSTERSTags: , , , , , , , , ,

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Important Information for New Scam Victims

If you are looking for local trauma counselors please visit counseling.AgainstScams.org or join SCARS for our counseling/therapy benefit: membership.AgainstScams.org

If you need to speak with someone now, you can dial 988 or find phone numbers for crisis hotlines all around the world here: www.opencounseling.com/suicide-hotlines

A Note About Labeling!

We often use the term ‘scam victim’ in our articles, but this is a convenience to help those searching for information in search engines like Google. It is just a convenience and has no deeper meaning. If you have come through such an experience, YOU are a Survivor! It was not your fault. You are not alone! Axios!

A Question of Trust

At the SCARS Institute, we invite you to do your own research on the topics we speak about and publish, Our team investigates the subject being discussed, especially when it comes to understanding the scam victims-survivors experience. You can do Google searches but in many cases, you will have to wade through scientific papers and studies. However, remember that biases and perspectives matter and influence the outcome. Regardless, we encourage you to explore these topics as thoroughly as you can for your own awareness.

Statement About Victim Blaming

Some of our articles discuss various aspects of victims. This is both about better understanding victims (the science of victimology) and their behaviors and psychology. This helps us to educate victims/survivors about why these crimes happened and to not blame themselves, better develop recovery programs, and to help victims avoid scams in the future. At times this may sound like blaming the victim, but it does not blame scam victims, we are simply explaining the hows and whys of the experience victims have.

These articles, about the Psychology of Scams or Victim Psychology – meaning that all humans have psychological or cognitive characteristics in common that can either be exploited or work against us – help us all to understand the unique challenges victims face before, during, and after scams, fraud, or cybercrimes. These sometimes talk about some of the vulnerabilities the scammers exploit. Victims rarely have control of them or are even aware of them, until something like a scam happens and then they can learn how their mind works and how to overcome these mechanisms.

Articles like these help victims and others understand these processes and how to help prevent them from being exploited again or to help them recover more easily by understanding their post-scam behaviors. Learn more about the Psychology of Scams at www.ScamPsychology.org

Psychology Disclaimer:

All articles about psychology and the human brain on this website are for information & education only

The information provided in this article is intended for educational and self-help purposes only and should not be construed as a substitute for professional therapy or counseling.

While any self-help techniques outlined herein may be beneficial for scam victims seeking to recover from their experience and move towards recovery, it is important to consult with a qualified mental health professional before initiating any course of action. Each individual’s experience and needs are unique, and what works for one person may not be suitable for another.

Additionally, any approach may not be appropriate for individuals with certain pre-existing mental health conditions or trauma histories. It is advisable to seek guidance from a licensed therapist or counselor who can provide personalized support, guidance, and treatment tailored to your specific needs.

If you are experiencing significant distress or emotional difficulties related to a scam or other traumatic event, please consult your doctor or mental health provider for appropriate care and support.

Also read our SCARS Institute Statement about Professional Care for Scam Victims – click here to go to our ScamsNOW.com website.

If you are in crisis, feeling desperate, or in despair please call 988 or your local crisis hotline.