OSAKA -- A Japanese man on Interpol's wanted list, suspected of having played a key role in scams swindling 65 people out of 390 million yen, has been apprehended in Ghana, according to investigative sources.
The so-called international romance scams that Hikaru Morikawa, 58, allegedly hatched involved the use of social media to pretend to be a woman working abroad, then luring people through romantic enticements to give money, the sources said.
The Osaka prefectural police, which had Morikawa placed on Interpol's international wanted list in August 2021 and made his mug shot available this May, believe he is the ringleader of a Ghana-based international group of scammers.
In one case in August 2019, according to police, Morikawa used social media to pose as a Japanese female doctor working in Yemen and made contact with a man in his 60s who started to develop a romance with the fictitious woman.
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