Activity of Anti-Social, Forgery Artists Appear in Many Fraud Cases (2/4)

This article is the 2nd part of rough translation of the report by Hirofumi Ito, published on a web media called “Gendai Business,” on July 3, 2014. (http://gendai.ismedia.jp/articles/print/39737)

Fraudsters Repeat Fraud with Various “Merchandise”

The 2nd Criminal Investigation Division investigated land racketeer groups and arrested about 30 members in 2002 and 2003.

On February 6, 2003, Mainichi reported on the case under the heading of “Five land racketeer group worked behind the scene. Even organized crime group involved.” The leading Japanese newspaper reported that there were racketeer groups called “Shinjuku Group,” “Ikebukuro Group,” “Sobu-line Group” The article also named Etsuji Tsuda with Shinjuku Group and Toshihisa Takahashi with Sob-line Group as mastermind who managed racketeer groups.

Tsuda and Takahashi were arrested in the LED case this year again. Tsuda was arrested on January 6 as a main suspect and Takahashi was arrested 5 months later. Morita, who was arrested at the same time as Takahashi, was ex-executive of LED developing company owned by Tsuda. Morita had been involved in pre-listed share fraud in Nagoya.

Morita was the perpetrator of the LED fraud and he had been facing civil litigation before the criminal investigation started. To cope with the accusation from Dentsu, Morita provided his deposition to explain “I did not to make fictitious order at the beginning. But (the clients’) cancellation forced me to forge order documents and seals,” and recognized hid wrongdoing.

The bottom line is, all cases are crime done by habitual offenders exploiting false documents and certificates. The only difference is the “merchandise”, such as real estate, LED, solar power device. On top of that, their forgery skill is so sophisticated that even the authority cannot tell the difference.