8 Served Arrest Warrants for Fraud over Tokyo Land Deal

November 26, 2018

Tokyo--Tokyo police on Monday served fresh arrest warrants on eight members of a fraud group for swindling billions of yen out of Sekisui House Ltd. <1928> over a land deal.

They included Masami Haketa, 63, who allegedly pretended to be the owner of a land plot in the Nishigotanda district of Tokyo's Shinagawa Ward. Haketa has admitted the fraud charges, while the other seven are denying the allegations, according to the Metropolitan Police Department.

The MPD plans to build cases against other members of the group on fraud charges, investigative sources said.

The police had arrested a total of 15 people, including the eight, by last week on suspicions including use of forged documents over the case with the major Japanese homebuilder.

The MPD suspects that the eight defrauded Sekisui House of 6.3 billion yen in total by concluding around between late March 2017 and early June the same year a deal to sell the 2,000-square-meter land plot to the firm, with Haketa pretending to be its owner using a forged passport.

Sekisui House later applied for registration of the ownership change for the land with the Shinagawa branch of the Justice Ministry's Tokyo Legal Affairs Bureau. But the application was rejected as materials submitted to the branch were found to have included forged documents.

With the fraud group having deposited about 750 million yen at Sekisui House with a claimed purpose of buying a condominium, the firm ended up losing some 5.55 billion yen.

The MPD is searching for the whereabouts of a 58-year-old man believed to have played a central role in the case. He is suspected to have fled to the Philippines. Jiji Press