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Abu is a small town in Yamaguchi Prefecture on the southwest coast of Japan’s main island of Honshu. At its peak in the 1950s, over 10,000 souls called it home. The last time anyone bothered to check, it had a population of about 3,000. The town last made the news in 2018 when its mayor, Hanada Norihiko, opposed placing an Aegis anti-missile system battery there.
Now, the sleepy town is suddenly back in the news. And local officials are scrambling to control the fallout.
Angst over relief
The controversy has its origins in Japan’s COVID-19 financial relief programs. Near the beginning of the pandemic, every household received 100,000 yen (around USD $776) for pandemic relief. In 2021, the country awarded another special grant in the same amount to every member of a household under 18 years of age.
Pandemic relief money comes from Japan’s federal coffers. However, the country’s left distribution of the cash to local governments.
And that’s where things get complicated.
For months, local governments were confused about how to handle the distribution for minors. Initially, the government said it wanted to split the compensation in half. About 500K yen would be given out as cash. The remaining 500K would come in the form of coupons for goods and services related to child-rearing.
However, large municipalities, like Setagaya Ward in Tokyo, pushed back. The coupon scheme, officials argued, was too complicated. And besides, there wasn’t enough time to issue coupons before the start of Japan’s next school year.
So the government relented. They left the exact method of distribution up to local municipalities. However, this was only after some wards had started informing households of the cash/coupon scheme[1].
463 households’ worth of relief
One morning, Taguchi wakes up to find his relief money has landed in his bank account. Except it’s not the piddling 100,000 yen he was expecting. Click To Tweet
In other words, municipalities were already tearing their hair out over haphazard pandemic relief programs thrown together at the last minute. It shouldn’t be shocking, then, if such a hectic environment produced major mistakes.
And produce them it did.
The trouble stems from a 2022 relief program for low-income households that were exempt from paying municipal taxes in 2021. Once again, the government left it to the municipalities to distribute 100,000 yen to all households who qualified for the relief.
Enter Taguchi Shou (田口翔), a 24-year-old resident of Abu. One morning, Taguchi wakes up to find his relief money has landed in his bank account.
Except it’s not the piddling 100,000 yen he was expecting. Instead, it’s a whopping 46.3 million yen – almost USD $360,000.
What happened? Chalk it up to “clerical error”. Administrators in Abu were supposed to distribute 100,000 yen to 463 households. Instead, a random man ended up with 463 households’ worth of relief payments.
Mind you, the poor public employees of Abu weren’t the only ones to send money where it didn’t belong. In Osaka, administrators sent 2,196 people double payments. Kobe accidentally sent a total of 3.3 million in payments to 33 people. In both cases, the money was recovered swiftly[3].
A spendthrift citizen, an outraged public
“So, what’s the big deal?” you might be thinking. “Can’t the dude just give the money back?”
That would certainly solve it. Only one problem: The dude in question already spent it.
Once Abu officials realized the mistake, they contacted the man and asked for the money back. At first, he seemed cooperative. But then he grew defiant. The miss, he said, was the municipality’s fault. He refused to engage with Abu workers any further unless he had a lawyer present.
Naturally, the town wasn’t going to let that stand. They continued to press Taguchi to return his ill-gotten funds. Taguchi, however, insisted that wasn’t possible. He claimed he’d frittered the entire amount away at Internet gambling sites[4].
If Taguchi’s claims were true, they’d put him in double hot water. First, he’d spent over a quarter of a million dollars that clearly wasn’t his. Second, casino gambling – including Internet gambling – is strictly illegal in Japan. (Yes, pachinko is legal, but pachinko is special.)
Harassment and recovery
By this time, the town of 3,000 was making national news – and not in a good way. Mayor Hanada reported that town workers were dealing with a flood of complaint calls and emails from people tearing into the worker who’d made the mistake. “Our staff is exhausted,” he told reporters. “But it’s our mistake so we have to endure it.” He alluded to the possibility the town might sue Taguchi for damages[5].
The town eventually determined that Taguchi had transferred most of the money to three different proxy services that are frequently used by Internet gambling site patrons. (He’d also withdrawn a smaller sum via his debit card.) On the 18th of May, police arrested Taguchi on charges of computer fraud.
Since then, the town’s made fast work of recovering Taguchi’s ill-gotten gains. Workers found the addresses of the three proxy companies and promptly issued seizure orders on Taguchi’s accounts. Taguchi had transferred the majority of the money – some 36 million yen – to a single company, with smaller amounts deposited at the two other companies. Between these three, the town’s managed to recover almost 43 million yen[6].
Even the mayor feels the bite
The story, of course, doesn’t end there. Taguchi Shou still has to face his day in court. And his chances of getting out of this without a criminal penalty look grim.
Even if he does, Taguchi’s fate is pretty much decided in the court of public opinion. Criminal offenders in Japan – and their families – often face harassment and shunning long after their sentences have been served. In most likelihood, once he serves his criminal sentence, he’ll have to move and change his identity.
But Taguchi isn’t the only one suffering. Mayor Hanada announced on May 30th that, as a result of the miss, he’ll be taking a 50% salary cut for three months. The deputy mayor and the head of reimbursements for Abu will also take a financial hit for the miss. Another four employees have been officially reprimanded[7].
We’ll find out in the coming months what fate has in store for Taguchi Shou. In the meantime, I’m gonna go double-check some numbers I entered yesterday…
Footnotes
[1] １０万円給付 自治体混乱. Yomiuri Shinbun
[2] 阿武町. Wikipedia JP
[3] ほかにもある自治体の誤送金 回収に四苦八苦の現場…億超えの大阪・寝屋川市や福島・天栄村など 督促申し立てを行うと１０万円以上の経費. Shuukan Fuji
[4] 誤送金の４６３０万円、２週間で引き出し…ギャンブル癖ないが「ネットカジノで全部使った」. Yomiuri Shinbun
[5] 阿武町誤給付 役場に苦情電話など殺到 町長「耐えていかないと」. Mainichi Shinbun
[6] なぜ3社は阿武町に「返金」したのか 弁護士が語る差し押さえの効果. Asahi Shinbun
[7] 阿武町の町長 給与50%カット 4630万円を誤振込で. FNN
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