Activity of Anti-Social, Forgery Artists Appear in Many Fraud Cases (3/4)

This article is the 3rd 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)

Their Sophisticated Forged Documents deceived conceived more than 10 Professionals

The Setagaya case’s target land in Seijo, one of the luxurious residential districts in Tokyo, is a prime real estate which is appraised about JPY 100 million (USD 1 million). At first, a real estate company loaned JPY 80 million (USD 800 thousand) against the land. Then the land was purchased by the Jasdaq-listed real estate company and should have been sold to a residential brokerage company.

By then, four months had passed since the first loan application to the real estate company was submitted. More than 10 professionals including judicial scrivener, real-estate appraiser, land and building inspector, banker who will loan to the land and real estate brokers for seller and buyer had been involved in a series of deals. However, no one could detect the forgery documents. On top of that the Ministry of Justice, in this case, Tokyo Legal Affairs Bureau Setagaya Branch could not recognize false application and approved registration of the land transaction.

The forgery is too sophisticated to detect. One victim grieved.

“The ‘land owner’ stood in front of me with his driver’s license. He provided me his certificate of residence, the real estate deed and the seal registration certificate. These documents carry various anti-forgery measures municipality by municipality. I admit I was careless for I did not to double check his identity information. However the government also should share the responsibility for issuing forgery-prone documents and approving false transaction.”

But he can do nothing as of now. And this case is exceptionally successful as the authority arrested not only perpetrator but also 5 members of land racketeer group behind him. It is not usually happen. Fraud members behind perpetrator usually claim “we are also deceived,” and successfully escape charge. As behind the scene member claims he is a victim, he must behave he never knows who forged the documents. Therefore it is very rare the authority arrests documents forger. As a result, these forgery groups can maintain themselves untouched.