Abstract
On March 11, 2011, an earthquake occurred in East Japan, and many people suffered extensive damage. Immediately after the earthquake, tsunami, and a nuclear accident, no rioting or plundering were witnessed. Soon after these disasters, however, some people began to commit fraud. In this chapter I analyze the phenomena of fraud and fraudulent business practices in chronical order through the use of articles by Asahi Shimbun, one of three major Japanese newspapers covering all over Japan. In addition, the fraud by Boryokudan (a group of Japanese gangsters) and remittance fraud by swindlers against the elderly are analyzed. Last, fraudulent business practices and scandals of bid rigging are explained, through which we can estimate the spread of corporate crime in Japan.
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Notes
- 1.
Two electric power generators meant for use in emergencies also stopped.
- 2.
In the 1980s Boryokudan founded or bought many enterprises in such business fields as real estate, construction, and the financial markets, in which some “secret” lieutenants worked as the executives (Yokoyama, 1999: 143). Boryokudan may have exploited the reconstruction projects in the damaged area through enterprises they controlled.
- 3.
Purchasing power in Japan has declined, as the number of people over 65 years old amounted to 26% of the entire population. Therefore, sales activities became very competitive and fraudulent business practices were rampant. On the other hand, habitual thefts such as pickpocketing and burglary decreased.
- 4.
The suspect forged a document to “prove” the adoption of his proposal by the minister of Economy, Trade and Industry. He was arrested for both fraud and the use of a forged public document.
- 5.
The public prosecutors’ office has a special investigation team in three cities—Tokyo, Osaka, and Nagoya—to expose large scandals in political and economic fields.
- 6.
To prevent an elderly person from becoming a victim of remittance fraud, a bank officer working at the counter asks him/her why they want to draw such a large amount of money.
- 7.
Swindlers employ young people to receive the money and to draw money from bank accounts. The police sometimes succeed in arresting these young people. However, it is difficult for the police to gain information from them to help expose the swindlers’ organization.
- 8.
The power of the National Police Agency is not as strong as the power manifested by the State Police before World War II (Yokoyama, 2001: 192). One of jobs of the National Police Agency is to direct the standards of police activities to all prefectural polices. They observe its directives because the National Police Agency controls them through personnel management and the allotment of national government subsidies.
- 9.
The boss’s Boryokudan was affiliated with Yamaguchi-gumi, the largest among three wide-area Boryokudans. Because he had to pay a monthly membership fee to Yamaguchi-gumi, it seem he committed this fraud to maintain his Boryokudan.
- 10.
The discriminatory treatment of Boryokudan members has spread recently (Yokoyama, 2016: 145). However, the collected donation was distributed to all sufferers, as Boryokudan members were not legally prohibited from receiving the donations.
- 11.
Miyagi Prefectural Police continued to investigate a case of this card being taken fraudulently. On March 3, 2014, it arrested for fraud a 30-year-old executive of a company that sells used cars in Shiogama City, because he took a cash card fraudulently and withdrew JPY500,000 (Asahi Shimbun, March 4, 2014).
- 12.
According to research conducted by the police in February 1989, the estimated total annual revenue of Boryokudan amounted to JPY1,302 billion, of which 19.7% was acquired through legal means (Yokoyama, 1999: 143). Half of the illegal revenue was acquired by managing legal companies. To reduce the revenue of Boryokudan, the law prohibits Boryokudan members and their relatives from registering as an executive of a company.
- 13.
Usually, the mass media informs the public of the real name of an arrested suspect in a big scandal. It is curious that on January 13, 2012, and in March 2012, Asahi Shimbun wrote “A” instead of the perpetrator’s real name.
- 14.
The public prosecutor did not prosecute other suspects because of insufficient suspicion (Asahi Shimbun, February 3, 2012).
- 15.
In fiscal year 2013 the government gave subsidies totaling JPY4500 million in 228 cases. The money received fraudulently by Techno-Labo amounted to 11.1% of the total subsidy amount.
- 16.
This system was expanded through revisions to the law in 2009.
- 17.
Other companies would not receive the administrative fine because its estimated amount was under JPY1,000,000.
- 18.
For example, the Watari Town Government in Miyagi carried out bids to order about 100 steel agricultural houses for growing a strawberry.
- 19.
Kajima Road and Kokiwakogyo were also not accused. Kajima Road failed to acquire the job by the bidding owing to document deficiencies. Kokiwakogyo acquired the job in the place of a company assigned by the bid-rigging.
- 20.
Seikitokyukogyo was not imposed the administrative fine owing to presenting a report in advance to the commission, although it had acquired the job by a successful bidding.
- 21.
An officer in charge of bidding of Maeda Road Construction played a role of a mediator together with the officers in NIPPO, Nippon Road and Seikitokyukogyo. Therefore, judges gave the severer sentence to Maeda Road Construction than that to Gaeart TK and Kitagawa Hutec.
- 22.
The amount of this special tax is 2.1% of all reported income.
References
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Yokoyama, M. (2018). Fraud and Fraudulent Business Practices Related to the East Japan Earthquake. In: Kratcoski, P., Edelbacher, M. (eds) Fraud and Corruption. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-92333-8_5
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