TOKYO (TR) – “A team of swindlers gets wind of prime real estate worth 10 billion yen and will stop at nothing to pull off their most ambitious scam yet.”
That line is taken from the promotional copy for “Tokyo Swindlers,” a series focusing on land fraud that is now playing on streaming site Netflix.
The series is generally based on actual events. As such, a court here last month ruled in favor of a plaintiff in one of the biggest cases of land fraud yet.
On November 27, the Tokyo District Court ordered Mike Uchida, 71, and four others to pay 1 billion yen to Osaka City-based home builder Sekisui House, reports Jiji Press (Nov. 27).
According to the ruling, Uchida and his accomplices in 2017 impersonated the landowners of land and buildings in Nishigotanda, Shinagawa Ward and signed a sales contract with Sekisui House to defraud the company out of approximately 5.5 billion yen.
Presiding judge Atsutaka Kamiya determined that Uchida “can be deemed to have participated in the fraud because he knowingly impersonated someone else.”
This, he said, was based on the fact that Uchida, who is currently serving a 12-year prison term, had requested the creation of a seal in the name of the landowner and had received at least 15 million yen of the defrauded money.
The presiding judge also determined that the other four also participated in the scam knowing that it was a fraud.
“There was no way they could be fooled”
By definition, a land fraudster (jimenshi) is a someone who pretends to own other people’s land, has a third party purchase it and defrauds them of the sales amount.
Fuji News Newtwork interviewed a real land fraudster in the Gotanda case. In doing so, the network learned of his lavish lifestyle after the scam and before his arrest.
“I think that land fraudsters can be said to be the ‘most professional of professionals’ among fraudsters,” says Yusuke Chino, an editor in the Social Affairs Department.
In the Gotanda case, Sekisui House was tricked into signing a false sales contract with a group of real estate fraudsters over a piece of land near JR Gotanda Station, where a long-established inn was once located. They were defrauded out of approximately 5.5 billion yen.
“[Land fraud] is actually a ‘classic scam’ because it is carried out face-to-face, unlike special frauds [tokushu sagi] that use phone calls or social media,” says Chino.
“There was no way they could be fooled”
In addition to Uchida, one of the other key players in the case, which is said to be one of the largest in a real estate fraud case in terms of the amount defrauded, was 64-year-old Misao Kaminskas, who is currently serving a 10-year prison term.
In this case, Kaminskas was in charge of negotiating with Sekisui House. Other responsibilities were assigned, such as the person who would impersonate the landowner, the person who would arrange for the person to do so, the person in charge of training the impersonator and even the person who would arrange for forged documents and other items necessary for negotiations.
The mastermind, Uchida, did not appear at the negotiations, but he was in charge of the entire plan. The results of the police investigation revealed that Uchida targeted the property in question about six months before the contract with Sekisui House was finalized. He then gathered accomplices and assigned them roles.
“Each member played their role as well as they did in a theater troupe, making them a true ‘group of professionals,'” adds Chino. “Their method was to take advantage of the fact that people from reputable large companies thought there was no way they could be fooled.”
Chino was tracking the footsteps of Kaminskas. Before his arrest, he said had this to say about the fake passports the impersonators used: “When I showed them my passport, the judicial scrivener did a hologram check. He said it came out fine, so there was no problem.”
“I get the impression that he’s really good at lying”
It’s a crime with a high risk of getting caught.
“Even if you get caught,” says Chino, “if you can get back the large amount of money you scammed, it’s worth the risk. Now you can just flee overseas, to Southeast Asia where it’s easier to blend in.”
There’s a video that shows how high the rewards are. Before his arrest, Kaminskas is shown smiling and leaning close to a hostess at a Filipino pub in Tokyo.
He is believed to have frequented such places every day. Then, when he found out that the investigation was closing in, he fled to the Philippines.
“Watching the video, I get the impression that he’s really good at lying,” Chino says. “I think he committed this crime knowing he’d get caught.”
Crimes by these land fraudsters occurred frequently during the so-called “bubble economy” era, but then things calmed down for a while.
However, in recent years, the number of vacant houses has increased in various places nationwide, while land prices in urban areas have risen. Therefore, there is a risk that land fraudsters will become active again.
“The reality is that it is not always possible to get back money that has been scammed,” Chino says. “It is absolutely necessary to first avoid being scammed.”
