English translation of the article:
The group attempted to launder money by MISUSING the cryptocurrency "Monero," which is considered to be highly confidential, but Kobayashi was identified by tracing the flow. According to the National Police Agency, this is the first time that a suspect has been identified in Japan through analysis of Monero.
quotingHere the original article, it looks more like an opsec failure on the part of the criminals than Monero.
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https://www.nikkei.com/article/DGXZQOUE211MN0R21C24A0000000/
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