The vox pópulli say that “the occasion makes the thief” and that is what happened to a young man who received $360 by mistake,000 dollars that were destined for the inhabitants of Abu, Yamaguchi prefecture in Japan, for Covid relief. The boy was seduced by the amount and disappeared with the money, despite the fact that his tenant says that he was “a good boy, young and pleasant”.
According to the site Sora News 24, which published the information, in April the man involved received 46.3 million yen (about $360,000 US dollars) in Covid relief payments-19 from 100,000 yen ($776 dollars) earmarked for 463 households in the city of Abu .
The problem arose because those responsible for gathering the names of the beneficiaries did it on an old diskette to send it to the bank in order to execute the transfers. The young man’s name was at the top of the list and by mistake they deposited all the money thinking that the capital should first go to that account and then filter to all the beneficiaries.
When the man noticed the windfall in his account on April 8, he was confused and seduced by the amount and little by little began to move amounts of ones 600,000 yen ($4,600 dollars) every day for about two weeks to avoid detection.
Days passed , the town realized what had happened and began to look for the money. When they found out where the entire deposit went, they immediately tried to contact the man, but they had problems.
They located the young man on 21 in April, and informed them that the money had disappeared from his account and assured them that it would not run, that he would pay for his crime.
The officials were left in a legally uncomfortable position, since technically they gave him the money by mistake and it was not exactly a robbery in the clear sense of the crime. After consulting lawyers and law enforcement, on May 16 they finally filed a lawsuit against the man, demanding 51.16 million yen ($397,000 dollars) made up of the amount he took plus legal fees.
By the time all this happened the young man had already left, left his bank account with zeros, quit his job, left his home and ran away. The local media contacted the owner of the house, who described the 24 year-old man as a good person.
The event shocked the community and although some think that it will not take long for him to be located to pay for his misdeeds, it is not known exactly what will happen to him, because technically he has not been charged with any crime, so perhaps Maybe the police won’t come looking for him. Also, according to local rules, after 10 years, the damage payment order will lose its validity and could possibly get away with it if things continue as they are.
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