Japan police bust alleged investment scam

Japan police arrested last week 17 persons, including the former president of Anaks Ocean View Hill Saipan, for allegedly victimizing old folks in Japan by enticing them to invest in a fraudulent sea cucumber project.

Saipan Tribune learned that former Anaks official Masaji Nakamoto claimed to be president of a company named Nanyo that has its head office on Saipan. Nanyo’s website http://nanyo-co.com/, showed a letter from Gov. Benigno R. Fitial dated Dec. 27, 2011; the letter was written in Japanese.

In the letter, Fitial apparently thanked Nakamoto for meeting and inviting him, and stating that his (Nakamoto’s) business proposal sounds good. Sources said it’s not clear whether the business proposal mentioned in the letter referred to the sea cucumber project.

A Japanese interpreter, however, told Saipan Tribune yesterday that the letter contains questionable Japanese translation.

The Nanyo website also has a group photo of Nakamoto, Fitial, Benigno Sablan, and a bunch of CNMI lawmakers.

According to the interpreter, the Jiji Press, the Mainichi Shimbun, and Fuji News reported last week, Feb. 21, that Japan’s Metropolitan Police Department arrested Nakamoto and 16 others for allegedly defrauding 290 people in Hokkaido, Hyogo, Nagasaki, and elsewhere of approximately 760 million yen since January 2011 in a fraudulent sea cucumber project.

The Japan police said that, in one case, the suspects, pretending to be employees of Nanyo, telephoned a 71-year-old man and enticed him to invest in “dried black sea cucumber export.” The suspects allegedly made the old man remit 800,000 yen.

Nakamoto and the other suspects allegedly promised to pay high dividends to the investors but failed to do so.

Japan police said the suspects claimed that sea cucumbers harvested in the water near Japan are popular in China and sell for high prices.

Japan police said that Nanyo’s head office is on Saipan and that it claims to be aligned with Aomori Prefecture. Japan investigators determined that Nanyo’s sea cucumber export project “is unsubstantiated.”

Nakamoto and several other suspects reportedly denied the charges.

In 2008, Dr. Norma S. Ada and nine other owners of units in the housing complex known as Anaks Ocean View Hill Saipan in Puerto Rico filed a lawsuit against the former members of the Anaks homeowners association board of directors, including Nakamoto, for allegedly enriching themselves through fraud at the expense of the owners. The lawsuit accused Nakamoto and his group of stealing $400,000 from Anaks. The lawsuit is still pending in Superior Court.