The 24-year-old man was arrested by police following absconding with money intended to subsidize all low-income households.
Japanese authorities have arrested a 24-year-old man who fled following mistakenly receiving 46.3 million yen ($300,322,993) intended to subsidize all low-income households in a town in the west of the country.
The detainee, Sho Taguchi, he would have spent the money in online casinos abroad and refused to return it, despite the fact that the city council informed him of the erroneous transferfor which he has been arrested accused of a crime of fraud, according to local media reports on Thursday.
Taguchi would have acknowledged the accusations and later showed his intention to return the money, although his lawyer has indicated that it is unlikely that he will be able to do so, according to the public broadcaster NHK.
The amount is the total amount of a 100,000 yen ($653,644) aid for covid-19 for each of the 463 low-income households from the town of Abu, in Yamaguchi Prefecture.
The local government sued the young man last week for more than 51 million yen ($335,655,110), the amount initially sent by mistake plus legal fees, and plans to open a criminal lawsuit in the case.
The incident has been widely reported in Japan since it became known last month, when the erroneous transfer took place, while more details regarding the case are emerging.
erroneous transfer
The town compiled a list of all financial aid applicants, in which Taguchi’s name was first.
On April 6, an official mistakenly sent a one-time transfer order for 46.3 million yen to the first recipient on the list, instead of 463 orders of 100,000 yen for each registrant, whose bank details had been compiled on a floppy disk that had to be sent to the bank to execute the transfers.
The amount was transferred on the 8th to the young man’s account, which was moved little by little for two weeks to avoid detection, following the city council itself notified him of the erroneous transfer and asked him to return it.
The authorities had difficulty connecting with Taguchi, who informed them that the money was no longer in his account, but initially agreed to return it, before disappearing.
The suspect was arrested Wednesday night.
Police are trying to trace the money by analyzing several smartphones seized from the detainee.
