A fake police station IG account has appeared in Okinawa. Following it will result in being privately messaged and pulled into an investment group, with a greeting in Chinese asking if the brothers are having fun?

Question

Taiwanese people's favorite travel destination, Okinawa, has recently seen the emergence of fake Instagram accounts impersonating the Okinawa Police Department. Scammers lure the public into following these accounts with very similar usernames; Okinawa is spelled Oki-n-awa, while the fake IG account has become Oki-u-awa, which can easily be mistaken. Once someone accidentally follows the fake account, they receive private messages inviting them to join investment groups. The scammers even ask individuals to provide their personal LINE accounts for further fraud.

TBS reporters tried to track it down and were immediately invited via private message to join an investment group, with the scammer even asking in Chinese if their brother was having fun. Additionally, the reporter discovered that their account had also been impersonated, with their profile picture and photos being used to create a counterfeit IG account.

It is worth noting that the fake accounts used in scams by the Okinawa police seem to be operated by Chinese individuals or people who speak Chinese, and they appear to specifically target the Chinese community. Anyone who is of Chinese descent should be particularly cautious.

The counterfeit account is only one character different, making it hard to detect.

The most common method of counterfeiting is to use very similar English phonetic spellings to confuse people. The real account name of the Okinawa Prefectural Police is "okinawa", while the fake account changes the "n" to a "u", becoming "okiuawa", making it hard to distinguish the difference without a close look. After a reporter tested and tracked the fake account, they immediately received investment scam advertisement messages, which even greeted in Chinese: "How are you, brother?" This left the Japanese reporter both amused and exasperated.

Investment fraud tactics are familiar yet suspicious.

IG investment scam accounts often use the lure of providing free investment stock tips to encourage victims to join Line groups. If they refuse the scam group, they will respond with greetings like "Are you having fun?" pretending to be familiar and concerned. During a test by a reporter, a Chinese message was received, indicating that the scam group had targeted Chinese-speaking users.

The impersonation scandal is escalating, and media reporters have also become targets.

Not only has the official IG account of the Japanese police been impersonated and misused, but even media reporters have become targets. TBS anchor stated that she found two fake accounts on Instagram that were almost identical to her own account. Not only were her personal profile picture and post content completely stolen, but even the account name was only one letter different. She lamented, "It's really hard to distinguish between true and false just by looking at pictures. I feel very scared when I think about someone interacting with others in my name."

How to identify fake IG accounts?

The public can identify fake IG accounts through several methods.

Is there a link between the official website and IG?

The official website usually includes links to official social media sites in its introduction, which can be viewed in advance.

Pay attention to the establishment time of the IG account and the posting history.

If the account was recently created or has a low number of posts that are published in a concentrated manner, it is very likely to have been set up for fraudulent purposes.

Compare account name pinyin and other details: Compare the pinyin of the account character by character and some punctuation like _ underscore or . dot and other details.
Check followers and following: Official accounts usually follow each other, and if the followers and following appear to be fake accounts or foreigners, the likelihood of fake accounts is very high.
Do not casually provide personal information to others

The Okinawa police remind that any actions requesting to join investment groups via official agency names or asking to click on suspicious links may involve fraud. If the public sees any suspected fake accounts, they should report them immediately and avoid further interaction.

In the face of the rampant phenomenon of fake accounts, experts emphasize that with just a slight negligence, anyone could become the next victim.

Meta takes a very passive approach towards rampant investment scams on Facebook and IG. Even reporting may be ineffective, as the scammers behind it can easily set up new fan pages. This time, the Japanese media discovered counterfeit accounts from the Okinawa police department, which are likely targeting Chinese-speaking communities. Travelers who love to visit Okinawa need to be particularly cautious.

This article discusses the emergence of a fake police station IG account in Okinawa, which sends direct messages to those who follow it, inviting them into an investment group, and even greets them in Chinese by asking if they are having fun, brothers? It was first reported by Chain News ABMedia.