Japanese man who was accidentally paid £290,000 in Covid money vanishes after gambling it ALL away

A Japanese man who was accidentally paid £290,000 in Covid relief money intended for 463 low-income households has vanished after losing it all in a month through online gambling, the BBC reports.

A government support scheme for those suffering Covid hardship was intended to pay each household £620 in the southern town of Abu in Japan’s Yamaguchi Prefecture.

But due to a blunder, on April 8 the entire amount – 46.3m yen or £290,000 – ended up in one man’s account. 

The recipient initially told authorities he would kindly return the money after the huge mistake. But since then he has mysteriously vanished.   

‘I don’t currently have the money and I don’t have anything with property value at hand,’ his lawyer quoted him as saying, according to The Asahi Shimbun.

‘It’s actually difficult to return it.’ 

Pictured: File photo of a gambling app. The man’s busy thumbs had gambled the entirety of the money away through apps on his smartphone, his lawyer explained

The lawyer explained that his client had been cooperating with authorities and agreed to an interview with Yamaguchi police over the matter of returning the money.

But after a lawsuit was filed against him on May 12, officials have not been able to get hold of him. 

An investigation into the matter has found that the man took out £3,700 every day for two weeks, according to local media.

When authorities contacted the beneficiary of their error, he admitted that the money was gone.

‘I’ve already moved the money. It can’t be returned,’ he is quoted as saying. ‘It cannot be undone any more. I will not run. I will pay for my crime.’ 

The man’s busy thumbs had gambled the entirety of the money away through apps on his smartphone, his lawyer explained. 

In response, the Abu Municipal Government is suing the man for £315,000 to get the money back and cover their legal costs.

Mayor Norihiko Hanada apologised to residents for the error which had made them victims of fraud.

He said his office would do its ‘utmost to take back the large amount of public money.’

Another tranche of £620 payments has been issued, although it is not clear if this is to replace the funds residents were deprived of or if it was due anyway.

Covid loan fraud has been a problem worldwide in the wake of the global pandemic, which forced businesses to close and economic activity to shut down.

In response, many governments rushed funds in the form of few-questions-asked loans to businesses which were wide open to fraudulent applications. 

Civil servant mandarins in the UK were told that even Russian crime syndicates had been able to ‘ransack the UK public purse’ for millions of pounds that led to criminals trying to flee the country with suitcases stuffed full of cash from Covid loans.

Alarmed: At a select committee hearing yesterday, Labour MP Angela Eagle (pictured) told senior figures from the Treasury and the British Business Bank: ‘It’s just a bonanza of fraud, isn’t it?’

It has emerged that some of the estimated £4billion lost to fraud through the loans – which were funded by banks but guaranteed by the Government – was seized at airports by Border Force officials as criminals tried to smuggle it out of the country. 

And dozens of company directors have been disqualified after taking out the maximum £50,000 loans intended to support their firms before blowing the money on gambling sprees, home improvements and luxury cars, The Times revealed. 

At a select committee hearing yesterday, Labour MP Angela Eagle told senior figures from the Treasury and the British Business Bank: ‘It’s just a bonanza of fraud, isn’t it?’, adding: ‘You’ve had 49 arrests. It’s not even touching even the first little iota of what’s going on, given that the schemes that you put into place were so open to abuse for at least a month.’ 

She cited the case of a Russian man and a Lithuanian man, both since jailed for money laundering, who were able to get £10million in 200 Covid loans – despite being on bail for fraud when they made the applications.