Ex-MUFG Bank Worker Paid Interest to Pawnshops

Jiji Press

13:43 JST, February 5, 2025

Tokyo (Jiji Press)—The former MUFG Bank employee suspected of massive thefts of customer assets regularly paid interest to pawnshops for the gold ingots she had stolen and pledged, Jiji Press learned Wednesday.

The 46-year-old suspect, Yukari Imamura, allegedly stole assets of at least about 60 customers worth ¥1.7 billion from the safe deposit boxes they used at the bank. Of the total, gold ingots are believed to account for about ¥700 million .

Tokyo’s Metropolitan Police Department suspects that she paid interest to prevent the pawned gold ingots from being lost so that she could collect and return them to safe deposit boxes when necessary.

The pawnbroker business law stipulates that the ownership of pawned goods be transferred to the pawnshop if interest and other necessary payments are not made within at least three months from the time of pawning.

According to investigative sources, Imamura deposited in several pawnshops gold ingots worth several hundred million yen that she had stolen.

The bank recovered all of the pawned gold ingots after learning of her massive thefts.

According to the police, Imamura used the cash she obtained through the thefts for foreign exchange margin trading and horse racing. She incurred losses of at least ¥1 billion from the currency trading.

Imamura told investigators that she thought that gold ingots would allow her to obtain a lot of cash. The police believe that she chose to steal gold ingots, which can be converted into cash quickly, so that she could refill safety deposit boxes from which she stole cash.