<figure id="attachment_455417" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-455417" style="width: 1924px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="8053b61a"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2026/01/4e97aaee2a833fec7e32ee187f331d30.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-455417" class="wp-caption-text">Right: President Hiroshi Mabara (60) Left: President-elect Hiromitsu Tokumaru (55) As he was leaving the venue after the press conference, President Mabara showed a contrasting expression to President-elect Tokumaru, who also announced that he will become an advisor to the company in February.</figcaption></figure>
<h2> Distorted Ethical View</h2>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> I heard that a considerable number of mid-career hires from February to March have turned down the position. There are also a number of people who wish to resign. Under these circumstances, there is no way we can sell insurance, so our volume will decrease and our income will plummet, but the company has not given us any explanation as to how they plan to compensate us.&#8221;</span></p>
<p> A young employee of Prudential Mutual Life Insurance sighed deeply as he spoke.</p>
<p> According to the investigative report released by the company on January 16, the earliest incident of fraud was in 1991, when 107 current and former employees were arrested on suspicion of fraud. According to the investigation report released by the company on January 16, the earliest victim was in 1991. The oldest victim was in 1991, and there were approximately 500 victims, with the total amount of damage amounting to 3.1 billion yen.</p>
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<p> The reason behind the 35 years of fraud is said to be the distorted performance-based pay system, which was created by the &#8220;full piece-rate&#8221; pay system. A mid-level employee of Prudential revealed the severity of the situation, saying, &#8220;At Prudential, there are only millionaires and paupers.</p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> Employees in charge of sales are called Life Planners (&#8220;LPs&#8221;). Minimum wage compensation is less than ¥100,000 per month, and most of their income depends on the sales commissions they receive based on the number of contracts they sign. This commission is the basis for their salary as well as bonus payments. While some employees earn as little as 3 million yen per year due to a lack of contracts, the employee who ranked first in sales last year earned as much as 400 million yen per year.</span></p>
<p> Many of the employees who committed fraud were &#8220;LPs who couldn&#8217;t make money,&#8221; he said.</p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> Before joining the company, they always tell you, &#8216;Prepare as many credit cards as you can make. &#8220;Before joining the company, they always tell you, &#8216;Get as many credit cards as you can afford. Even after you join the company, you will have to pay for your own transportation, meetings, and other expenses, so you are expected to cover these expenses with a credit card loan as well. You can&#8217;t expect to earn any cash income. If you get a contract, it&#8217;s fine, but if you don&#8217;t, you fall into a vicious cycle where the more you work, the more debt you incur. When they were so deep in debt that they couldn&#8217;t keep their heads above water, the last resort they had left was to &#8216;dip into their clients&#8217; money.</span></p>
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<p> While some people cheat to make a living, others do so for personal gain. At least three LPs with annual incomes of 80 million yen were among the employees who were found to be involved. When we interviewed them about the background behind the distorted ethical view of money, we found a unique corporate culture in which only the top performers are given preferential treatment.</p>
<div data-friday-nextpage-lead=" As long as you make sales"></div>
<h2>Calling a woman to a townhouse: &#8230;&#8230;</h2>
<p> A middle-aged man hugs a beautiful brown-haired woman from behind, smiles broadly, and squeezes her breasts as hard as he can. 40 seconds into the video, the man kisses the woman&#8217;s neck and goes to great lengths to get her horny. This is the content of a video sent by one of Prudential Life Insurance&#8217;s top performers to his junior colleagues. The man also sent a video of a woman with long hair taking a shower in a bathroom to a junior colleague, which he had secretly filmed. One alumnus who was a high achiever in the school said, &#8220;He sent the video to his juniors.</p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> One of the top-ranking alumni of the company said, &#8220;He probably sent the pornographic videos to his juniors in order to show off his success. Top salespeople always say, &#8216;Money is everything in this world, and you can have as many women as you want. You can have as many women as you want. As if to prove their point, they live in high-rise condominiums, drive luxury cars, and spend lavish amounts of money in Ginza.</span><br>
<span class="strongInContent"> Some LPs even gathered their juniors for a training session at their high-rise condominiums and invited big-name comedians to perform one-shot shows. Behind the increase in the number of LPs who have become money losers is the existence of these misguided role models.</span></p>
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<p> Top salespeople are honored at weekly Monday meetings and are invited to an annual &#8220;convention&#8221; held in Hawaii or elsewhere. Furthermore, if you are ranked in the top 100 in the world, an advertisement with your picture on it will be shown on a street vision screen at the highest point in Times Square in the United States. A mid-level employee mentioned above said, &#8220;There is a culture in which anything is allowed as long as it generates sales.</p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> Since the COVID-19 crisis, conventions have been held in Japan, but they have been extravagant, with famous singers invited to attend. In fact, the conventions were ostensibly stopped in 1924, when the fraud investigation began, but the company changed the name to &#8220;training sessions&#8221; and kept them going. I sensed the company&#8217;s unusual results-oriented attitude in its attempt to protect the sunny stage for top salespeople even after the problem was uncovered. I believe that this corporate culture, in which sales are everything, created these monsters.&#8221;</span></p>
<p> At a press conference held on January 23, it was announced that President Hiroshi Mabara (60) had resigned and would be replaced by Hiromitsu Tokumaru (55), President of Prudential Gibraltar Financial Life Insurance, a group company. What does Prudential need to change? Mamoru Nishiyama, Associate Professor of Business Management at J. F. Oberlin University, explains.</p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> It is clear that the corporate culture of valuing only top performers has instilled the idea that making money is all that is necessary, no matter how pretentious. The resignation of the president is not enough to reform the corporate culture. It will be necessary to make drastic changes, such as bringing in an outside director who is familiar with compliance issues.</span></p>
<p> It is no mean feat to purge 35 years of pus.</p>
<figure id="attachment_455420" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-455420" style="width: 1937px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="5cb5b59b"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2026/01/7b7b939fc74bfd8b8ba6576142f19ab1.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-455420" class="wp-caption-text"> A top salesman smiles for the camera as he rubs a woman&#8217;s breasts. He was photographed in a room on the top floor of the tower block where he lives.</figcaption></figure>
<p> From the February 13, 2026 issue of &#8220;FRIDAY</p>
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 Kazuhiko Nakamura (first photo)

 The company's corporate culture has created monsters.

 Current employees reveal the reality of the "distorted performance-based system" that led to the spread of massive fraud: "The corporate culture of 'sales are everything' has created monsters.

Prudential Life Insurance’s Top Salesman’s “Disgusting Behavior” and “Harsh Video

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