Overview

Daisuke Suzuki is an investigative journalist who has written extensively about young people living on the underside of Japanese society. In this book he examines the organization and methods of the groups conducting the “It’s me! It’s me!” family impersonation telephone scams targeting the elderly in Japan. Using a true crime reportage style, he shows how the young scammers are trained and operate, and how this scam is linked to organized crime. He gives detailed portraits of scammers he has interviewed, and links this scam to tension in Japanese society between the youth and the elderly.