Victim angrily accuses “malicious financial trouble”: “I lost 500 million yen at the instigation of the president of Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Group.”
Trust in the financial industry has been shaken!
He was defrauded through the clever use of forged receipts and business cards bearing the bank’s name and seal.
I cannot forgive the man who has been cheating us for 15 years, and I am furious to think that he is still living in prison without ever returning the 500 million yen that was paid to him.
Mr. A, who manages several restaurants in Tokyo and other areas, confides this to us.
On January 16, it was announced that the president of Prudential Mutual Life Insurance Company had resigned because more than 100 employees of the company had defrauded customers out of approximately 3.1 billion yen. However, the “executor” who Mr. A. reveals this time is not a single sales employee, but a former elite bank employee who served as president of a megabank group company.
It was in the fall of 2010 when a large man in a suit came to a long-established coffee shop in Ginza, Tokyo, with a soft smile on his face. The man presented his business card and bowed deeply to Mr. A. The title of the card reads as follows.
Representative Director and Senior Managing Director of SMBC Loan Business Service Co.
Mr. A was told by his friend that he would introduce him to a Sumitomo Mitsui executive, and this restaurant was designated as the meeting place. As soon as they met, the big man, Mr. X, made the following suggestion in a hushed voice: “Actually, I’d like to introduce you to some of our executive-level and special executives.
In fact, we have an operational line of credit that we can only offer to our executive class and special customers.
SMBC Loan Business Service (now SMBC Operation Service Co., Ltd.) is a wholly owned subsidiary of Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC) that handles all loan administration and loan management operations.
I used to be a vice president of SMBC. I was previously vice president of Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, and now I have been transferred to this company and am in charge of the company’s board of directors.
The “special investment” he proposed to Mr. A included “financial products that combine investments in foreign currencies denominated in euros and stocks of overseas companies,” etc. Mr. X explained that the target dividend was 3% per year, implying a guarantee of the principal, which is prohibited under the Capital Subscription Law. At the time, long-term interest rates were in the mid-1% range due to the collapse of Lehman Brothers, and the conditions were certainly favorable.
Mr. X joined the former Sakura Bank, and after the merger created Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC), he worked as the branch manager of SMBC’s Kanda Branch before becoming a senior research officer at the head office. He was then transferred to SMBC Loan Advisors, and from June 2008 to May 2012, he was the director and senior managing director of Loan Business Service.
In September of the following year, Mr. A, who now had sufficient funds, decided to “deal” with Mr. X. At another coffee shop in Ginza, Mr. A handed over 20 million yen in cash and received a “money transfer receipt.
Mr. X had explained to me beforehand that this was a special transaction and that I could not use an account with a record of the transaction. Instead, Mr. X had prepared a receipt with the name of the Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation bank on it. It had a stamp affixed and the bank’s company seal. He brought it in an envelope with the bank’s logo on it, so I trusted him completely.
From the February 13, 2026 issue of FRIDAY
Interview and text： Hironori Jinno (Nonfiction writer)