Investors duped by $1.4 billion in economic fraud in Japan

05 February 2009

The current global economic turmoil and recession in many countries has given rise to economic frauds. The Japanese police yesterday arrested an executive who allegedly duped thousands of investors in Japan to the tune of nearly $1.4 billion.

The Jiji Press news agency reported that Kazutsugi Nami, chairman of Tokyo based bedding supplier L&G K.K. had lured investors by promising them 36 per cent annual return of their investments.

His company issued its own electronic money, where investors could buy items from online companies as well as articles ranging from jewellery to vegetables.

The electronic money was called "enten", which is a combination word for the currency of Japan, the yen and paradise in Japanese language.

The scheme is quite intriguing as people were fooled into believing that the money they invested at one time with the company was still intact as they would get the same amount of ''enten'' every year, even if they had spent the money.

Kazutsugi Nami, apparently duped about 37,000 investors of $1.4 billion, but some media has put the figure as high as $2.5 billion.