According to news site SoraNews24, a 24-year-old man in Japan accidentally received an amount of 46.3 million yen ($358,857) into his personal account.
However, this is the money to support Covid-19 for 463 households living in the town of Abu in Yamaguchi Prefecture. The incident happened on April 8. Worth mentioning, this person did not return the money to the local government, but also secretly took the money and fled.
A young man in Japan stole the entire town’s Covid-19 relief money worth more than 46 million yen and fled. (Illustration)
It is known that the name of the young man is at the top of the list of households receiving Covid-19 support money of Abu town. This list is then forwarded to the bank for disbursement. But due to an error in transferring the data to the bank along with the money order, the confusion occurred. Accordingly, the bank transferred the entire 46.3 million yen into the account of a citizen in the town of Abu and thought that the money would then be distributed to each other household.
Asahi Shimbun reported that as soon as he discovered that a large amount of money had been transferred to his personal account, every day, the young man silently transferred small amounts of money out of the account to avoid detection. Specifically, on the first day of receiving the large amount, this person withdrew more than 600,000 yen. And in just 2 weeks, the entire amount was withdrawn from the account.
While, according to the plan, each household on the support list of Abu town will receive an amount of 100,000 yen.
The incident was exposed on April 21 and local authorities contacted to ask the young man to return the money. But this person said that the entire amount disappeared from the account.
“The entire amount has been transferred to another bank account. I cannot transfer money back to the original account. I will pay the price for my sins,” the person told the local government.
In fact, the Abu town government was in a dilemma because they themselves made the wrong transfer, so they could not blame the male citizen for the theft.
But on May 12, the Abu town government decided to sue and ask the young man to return the amount admitted, with legal costs.
But on May 15, this person broke his promise and disappeared from home with the capital used to financially support 463 households in the town.
SoraNews24 added that the young man moved to the town of Abu in October 2020 through the Japanese government’s population redistribution program to rural areas.
Locals describe the young man as “a kind, young and handsome guy”.
The lessor said subject paid him the entire month of May’s rent.
The head of Abu town, Mr. Hideaki Nakamura, apologized for the error, and town officials tried to contact him to recover the wrong amount. But since April 21, when the young man admitted to receiving a large amount of money, he had cut off contact with the authorities. Local authorities are unable to determine the whereabouts of the young man who fled, nor the fate of the wrongly transferred money.
Some residents criticized the local government’s slow response to the scammer.
“Local authorities gave him enough time to escape. This is for sure,” a reader shared with Japan Today.
The Japanese government has deployed a special support package for households to overcome economic difficulties due to the impact of the Covid-19 epidemic. The amount of support money is deducted from the local budget.
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