Japan’s Inexperienced Investors Fall for Scams ‘Like Babies’

As Japan’s stock market booms, something else is also on the rise in the nation: investment scams.

Criminals have been quick to exploit the paradigm shift that’s seen a relatively financially inexperienced population turn to investing, spurred by rising consumer prices and government encouragement to find higher returns for their savings.

In the first quarter, Japan saw a sevenfold increase in money lost to investment scams from a year earlier, according to the National Police Agency. The agency began tracking the data in January last year, and the latest statistics show there were 1,700 scams reported in the first ...