TOKYO (TR) – Tokyo Metropolitan Police have arrested four company employees for allegedly engaging in FX trading without registering with the government.
The men are believed to have collected a total of more than 1.6 billion yen from more than 1,500 people, reports Jiji Press (Nov. 12).
According to investigators, Takashi Iwai, the 47-year-old operator of the FX-related company APPOS Holdings, Manabu Hamamoto, the 51-year-old president of investment school Earning Academy, and the other two suspects are suspected of engaging in FX trading with customers without registering with the government since 2019.
The four suspects have been accused of violating the Financial Instruments and Exchange Act. Police have not revealed whether they have admitted to the charges.
According to police, the four suspects solicited customers by claiming to operate a “mirror trade,” which is an automated trading system that mimics the FX trading of professional investors.
Iwai and the other suspects are accused of trading in FX without proper registration between February and November of last year. In those transactions, they used a mirror trade that reflected Hamamoto’s FX trades for about 8 million yen raised from five customers, including a woman in her 50s from Osaka Prefecture.
“Using mirror trades will definitely bring profits”
Iwai runs an FX trading website. Hamamoto recruited customers through investment seminars. “It’s difficult for amateurs to make a profit on their own. Using mirror trades will definitely bring profits,” he told attendees. He also received referral fees from Iwai.
The system came to light when a customer contacted police in November of last year to complain that they could no longer withdraw their funds. In the same month, the trading website was shut down, and customers were no longer given refunds.
It is believed that the suspects raised about 1.6 billion yen from about 1,500 people between March 2019 and November 2023. Police are continuing the investigation to learn whether they may have committed other crimes.
The National Consumer Affairs Center would like potential FX traders to utilize caution. “You should check whether the company is registered as a financial instruments business. Do not do business with unregistered companies, and if you have any concerns, call a consumer affairs center or the consumer hotline.”
