PANews, June 20 – According to Japan's Kyodo News, Osaka Prefectural Police recently arrested three men on suspicion of violating the Organized Crime Punishment Act. The three individuals provided money laundering services for an investment fraud group, using stablecoins and other crypto assets to obscure the flow of illicit funds.
Police investigations revealed that the three took proceeds from the fraud group, converting approximately 14 million yen in defrauded funds from 10 victims across six prefectures in Japan into stablecoins and other crypto assets, thereby severing the traceability link and concealing the origin of the criminal proceeds.
The three suspects are reportedly over-the-counter crypto traders operating through peer-to-peer private transactions that bypass formally licensed exchanges. Police assess that the overall money laundering scale involving this group reaches several billion yen, forming part of a large-scale crypto money laundering criminal network.