TOKYO (TR) – Tokyo Metropolitan Police have arrested three persons who are suspected collecting about 300 million yen from dozens of investors under the false promise of high returns, reports the Mainichi Shimbun (July 10).
According to police, Yusuke Watanabe, a 40-year-old resident of Sapporo City, Masae Ido, a 49-year-old temporary worker from Kawasaki City, and Aki Mizuno, a 49-year-old taxi driver from Osaka City, worked together to collect money from victims under the guise that they had inside information from “a super skilled trader from overseas.”
Between October 2021 and September 2022, the three suspects are suspected of working together to defraud 79.5 million yen from three people, including a woman in her 50s living in Tokyo, through false claims that the funds would be invested in stocks, virtual currencies and other products.
Police did not reveal whether the suspects admit to allegations of fraud.
“There is a world that ordinary people don’t know about”
According to investigators, the three suspects told persons they met at a networking event, “Our investment manager is a super skilled trader from a major overseas securities company.” They then solicited investments by claiming that they would “guarantee a monthly interest rate of 15 to 70 percent.”
A man who invested 28.5 million yen was told, “If you invest, we can give you 1.38 times your money each month. There is a world that ordinary people don’t know about.”
However, there is no evidence that the money the suspects raised was actually invested. It is believed that Watanabe spent the majority of it on horse racing and foreign exchange margin trading. At Watanabe’s instructions, Mizuno sent false emails to investors every month claiming that the investment was successful.
A woman who invested tens of millions of yen tells Nippon News Network (July 10) that Watanabe told her that he is “a highly skilled prop trader who set up a company in Singapore to help Japanese people.” She says, “At first the monthly interest rate was 15 percent, but for a limited time there was a minimum guarantee of 1.6 times that. So he would send messages on Line saying things like, ‘For example, if you put in this much it will become 100 million yen.'”
Police believe that the three suspects defrauded 133 victims out of approximately 300 million yen over a two-and-a-half year period from April 2020. The investigation is ongoing.
