By James Simons-
A 24-year-old man from Japan has blown his entire town’s Covid relief fund, after it was accidentally transferred into his account .
The young man blew through ¥46.3m (around £287,000) in two weeks on online casino gambling, after embarking on an insane online gambling spree with the surprising sum. He has no assets and is on the run.
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The story exposes the negligence of the authorities in Japan, who made the stupid error of sending such an amount to the wrong person’s account. The money appears to be irrecoverable, even legally, as the man whose identity has not been made public, has no assets whatsoever, and is nowhere to be found.
According to Japan Today, officials had compiled a list of names for the people due to receive the relief funds, they put these names on a floppy disk and gave them to the bank.
The 24-year-old, who has not been named, received the sum in April as part of a local government programme to help residents who were struggling financially as a result of the pandemic.
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Rather than sending him the correct amount – ¥100,000 (£621/US$774) – the town government of Abu, in western Japan, wired money intended for all 463 low-income households to his bank account, according to Japanese media reports.
After local officials realised their blunder, they filed a lawsuit on 12 May seeking the immediate return of the money plus legal costs, but were apparently unable to contact the recipient.
The man, who reportedly lives alone and recently quit his job working in a shop, agreed to return the cash but then claimed, without explanation, that it had “been moved” from his account.
Records showed he withdrew all of the money from his bank account between 8 to 21 April. Mistakenly the bank thought this was the sole account to transfer funds to, which is where things got pretty hairy.
Instead, records show the man spent all of the money between 8-21 April on online gambling. Responding to authorities, the man said: “I’ve already moved the money. It can’t be returned,” as reported by the BBC.
The money was supposed to be part of a Covid relief package. Credit: Alamy
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