Tokyo Firm Sought to Withdraw Funds Under False Pretenses; Accounts Had Been Frozen to Compensate Scamming Victims

The Yomiuri Shimbun

17:18 JST, January 20, 2025

A Tokyo company obtained a court document under false pretenses in a bid to withdraw funds from bank accounts that had been frozen to compensate victims of investment scams, The Yomiuri Shimbun has learned.

The company originally claimed it had lent money to the holders of the frozen accounts. However, in a lawsuit with a scamming victim, the company admitted that assertion was false.

A firm with the same name and the same representative was also found to have obtained funds from another frozen account. The Supreme Court will gather information to ascertain the situation.

Losses caused by investment scams through social media and unconventional fraud exceed ¥70 billion a year. The law on recovering money that people transferred from their bank accounts to scammers allows accounts that were used for fraud to be frozen, and the remaining funds returned to the victims.

However, if the money in such frozen accounts is illicitly withdrawn, victims will not receive compensation.

“Compulsory execution” is a proceeding in which the court forcibly seizes and collects the property of a party that borrowed funds, at the request of the party that lent the funds. The document that serves as the basis for the procedure includes a judgment ordering compensation, a demand for payment issued by a summary court, and a notarized deed prepared by a notary public.

In the lawsuit, a male victim of scammers in his 60s is asking the Tokyo District Court to deny compulsory executions by two Tokyo-based consulting firms that have the same representative and company name.

According to records on the lawsuit and other materials, the man was approached in 2023 by a person claiming to be a prominent economic analyst. He was offered a chance to invest through the Line app and transferred a total of ¥124 million to 20 accounts.

The man later consulted with the police, and accounts that were in the names of three Vietnamese nationals were frozen.

In 2024, one of the two companies, a business in Shinagawa Ward, Tokyo, obtained a document from the Tokyo Summary Court demanding payment. The Shinagawa company claimed that it had loaned the three Vietnamese individuals ¥100,000 each.

On this basis, the company filed a petition with the Tokyo District Court for compulsory execution to withdraw funds from the frozen accounts.

The other company — in Shibuya Ward, Tokyo — also tried to withdraw funds through compulsory execution procedures, claiming the firm loaned a total of ¥26.5 million to the three Vietnamese. However, the bank was suspicious and refused to withdraw the money.

In the lawsuit, the scamming victim claimed that the compulsory executions were unjustified, citing the fact that the three Vietnamese nationals were not in Japan at the time when the company in Shinagawa claimed it loaned them ¥100,000 each. This assertion was based on their immigration and emigration records, among other information.

The company in Shinagawa admitted in oral arguments on Thursday that the loan was false and that it had received a document from the summary court demanding payment that contained false information.

However, the Shibuya company argued that its compulsory execution was legitimate.

In a separate case in 2024, the Shibuya company obtained approximately ¥100 million remaining in an account that had been frozen in another fraud case. The company obtained a notarized deed stating that it had lent ¥130 million to an advertising-related company, the holder of the frozen account, and applied for compulsory execution.

The representative of the two companies said on Friday that he could not talk about the alleged use of false documents because the matter was part of ongoing court procedures.