Why You Don’t Trust Strangers On The Internet

Japanese cops don’t only arrest dudes selling phony hug pillow covers. Sometimes they arrest other types of criminals. Like people trying to scam gamers out of vital information.

This week 29-year-old company employee Yu Nishimura and 39-year-old medical claims worker Kaori Tanaka were arrested for violating Japan’s Unauthorized Computer Access Law, reports the Yomiuri Shimbun.

Both Nishimura and Tanaka apparently were running a fishing scam website that snagged player information like user IDs and passwords for online role-playing game “Lineage II: The Chaotic Throne.” Nishimura and Tanaka met online while playing the game, say police.

The site enticed players with phony ads for software that would increase in-game combat capabilities. The site was built on software that could not be detected by antivirus programs.

According to the Yomiuri Shimbun, Kanagawa police are moving forward on this as a violation of illegal access law, but might build a case around business obstruction by fraud because the business of the game’s Japanese operator, NC Japan, was impacted by the scam.

Nishimura and Tanaka apparently stole the Lineage II log-in info for nine individuals in eight different prefectures. Police suspect that the two were able to steal over one hundred people’s IDs and passwords. Then, they apparently sold in-game items to other users and reportedly made over ¥1 million ($12,000) between last April and June.

The police say that NC Japan lost around ¥100 million in adding countermeasures to prevent illegal access.

If convicted, Nishimura and Tanaka could be looking at anywhere between one to three years of prison or a fine up to ¥500,000 ($6000).

2 held over stealing online game user IDs [DAILY YOMIURI ONLINE via News on Japan Thanks, KamuZ!]