Scattered Entry Points, One Exit: 97.9% of Social-Media Investment Fraud Losses Run Through LINE

Hello. This is Shemihaza, your sentinel.
The thing worth taking away today is that the app you met on is not where the warning sign lives.
The National Police Agency published its provisional figures for the first half of 2026 on 30 July 2026. In social-media investment fraud, the place the first contact arrives from is spread thin, and the NPA itself describes it as a diversification of initial-contact tools.

By the time the money is taken, though, the channel in use collapses to almost one.
LINE accounts for 5,658 cases, 96.0% of the total. By value it is 78.12 billion yen, 97.9%.
So there are dozens of ways in and effectively one way out. That makes "let us continue on LINE" the clearest fork in the road.

First contact is spread across many places

Social-media investment fraud came to 5,893 reported cases in the first half. Here is where the first contact arrived from.

• ▸Instagram: 1,403 cases (23.8%), up 809 cases, +136.2% year on year
• ▸X (Twitter): 677 cases (11.5%), up 380, +127.9%
• ▸LINE: 631 cases (10.7%), up 203, +47.4%
• ▸TikTok: 553 cases (9.4%), up 341, +160.8%
• ▸Investment websites: 553 cases (9.4%), up 251, +83.1%
• ▸Facebook: 552 cases (9.4%), up 230, +71.4%
• ▸YouTube: 438 cases (7.4%), up 247, +129.3%
• ▸Plus other social media, 503 cases (8.5%), and other, 583 cases (9.9%)

The NPA notes that Instagram, X and LINE together make up roughly half, then lists the rest and concludes that the initial-contact tools are diversifying.
One thing follows from that: "avoid this app and you are safe" does not hold. Beyond the seven above, other social media and other together account for 1,086 cases.

At the money stage almost everyone has been moved to LINE

The same document reports the channel in use at the time of the loss. LINE: 5,658 cases, 96.0%, and 78.12 billion yen, 97.9% by value. Everything else comes to 235 cases (4.0%) and 1.67 billion yen (2.1%).
Note that the share by value, 97.9%, is higher than the share by case count, 96.0%. Simple arithmetic on those two shares gives roughly 13.8 million yen per case where LINE was in use, against about 7.1 million yen for everything else.
But the statistic only records which channel was in use at the time of the loss. It does not track whether the conversation moved during the case. So these figures do not support saying that the move itself made the losses larger.

To be clear, this is not a fault in LINE. What the statistic shows is which channel was in use when the money was taken, and nothing more. It is the most used messaging app in Japan, so a concentration there is unsurprising. That said, "they move you there because it is popular" is an inference drawn from this statistic, not something the NPA states.
What is worth watching is the act of moving. Posts and comments on a social platform are seen by other users; a one-to-one conversation is not something a third party happens to notice.
LINE does provide a way to report suspicious messages to the operator. What goes away is the bystanders, not the reporting route.

Romance fraud starts somewhere slightly different

The same document covers social-media romance fraud, 2,509 reported cases, and the line-up of entry points differs from investment fraud.

• ▸Dating apps: 753 cases (30.0%), down 49 cases, -6.1% year on year
• ▸Instagram: 486 cases (19.4%), down 104, -17.6%
• ▸Facebook: 449 cases (17.9%), down 44, -8.9%
• ▸TikTok: 284 cases (11.3%). This is the only one rising, up 80 cases, +39.2%
• ▸X (Twitter): 131 cases (5.2%), plus other social media 315 (12.6%) and other 91 (3.6%)

The NPA puts those four at roughly 80% of the total.
Read the direction carefully. The top three, dating apps, Instagram and Facebook, are all down, but romance fraud overall came to 2,509 cases, up 5 cases or +0.2% year on year, which is essentially flat. It is not growing the way investment fraud is, but it is not shrinking either. Within the breakdown, only TikTok rose, by 80 cases or +39.2%.
And romance fraud ends up in the same place: LINE accounts for 2,344 cases, 93.4%, and 23.92 billion yen, 97.0% by value. Different doors, same corridor.

The sequence, in four steps

The four steps below are this site’s own reading of the statistics above. They are not a sequence published by the NPA.

• ▸1. Contact arrives on some other app — an advert, a DM, a comment, a friend request, a match. Money usually is not mentioned at this point
• ▸2. You are invited to move to LINE. A reason is usually attached, and it does not sound strange in itself: easier to talk there, or an invitation to a group
• ▸3. Trust is built on LINE — daily messages, screenshots of profits, voices of other participants. Time spent here steadily reduces the number of moments where something looks wrong
• ▸4. The transfer is requested — bank transfer, crypto assets, electronic money. By this stage the other party is somewhere nobody else can see

What to do today

• ✓When someone says "let us move to LINE", stop there for a moment. Moving is not in itself a crime, but statistically it is the clearest fork in the road. If there is no reason to hurry, staying where you are costs you nothing
• ✓Search the person’s name before you move. Look for the same photograph or the same wording used elsewhere
• ✓If you are told something will definitely make money, verify who they are yourself. Soliciting financial products requires registration in Japan. Check the official site you found by searching, not the link they sent
• ✓If someone in your family is talking to a new acquaintance only on LINE, raise it once. Not as an accusation — asking where they met is enough
• ✓The moment a transfer is requested, tell somebody. Even at step 4, you can still stop before the money moves
• ✓If the money has gone, call the bank first, then report it to the police. The sooner, the better the chance of stopping it

Three lines to pass on

• ▸Social-media investment fraud arrives through Instagram, X, TikTok and many others. There is no app that is safe by itself (NPA, first half of 2026)
• ▸But 96.0% of the cases are on LINE by the time money is taken. So "let us continue on LINE" is the fork in the road
• ▸If a transfer is requested, tell somebody before you send it. In Japan the police advice line is #9110, and for payment or contract trouble the consumer hotline is 188

Where to get help

In Japan, #9110 is the police advice line for situations where you are not sure a crime has occurred. Each prefectural police force also runs a cybercrime consultation desk.
For trouble over a payment or a contract, the consumer hotline is 188, which connects to your nearest consumer affairs centre.
If the money has already gone, call the bank first. Freezing an account and recalling a transfer are the bank’s procedures. These are Japanese services; readers elsewhere should use their own national equivalents.

Sources