President of Dunamis Racing Being Hunted for the Missing 400 Million Yen Paid by its 100s of Clients

The problem is that customers who paid money to purchase new cars at Dunamis Racing, a car dealership in Nagano, Nagano Prefecture, have not received their cars for more than two years, and refunds have rarely been made. While the president of the company, O., who runs the business, has disappeared, the Nagano Prefectural Police launched a full-scale investigation, including a raid on the company on February 8. In the course of our ongoing coverage, we were able to obtain significant testimony from a police official that got to the heart of this trouble.

The Nagano Prefectural Police have checked President O’s accounts and assets, and have confirmed that there was no money at all. The police officials said, “The focus of this case is whether or not we can prove the fraud charge given the circumstances of this trouble , but apart from that, the possibility has emerged that President O may have violated the’Road Trucking Vehicle Law’ as well.

Let us briefly review the history of the new car delivery trouble to date. It was last year that a large-scale new car delivery trouble was discovered at Dunamis Racing, a car dealership located in Nagano City.

The company told us that they would give us a discount if we paid the full amount up front before delivery, but the car was not delivered and was repeatedly delayed. When we urged him to deliver the car, he told us that he would give us free service, so we kept on putting up with it .

According to the purchasers and police, there were victims not only in Nagano Prefecture, but also in Niigata, Shizuoka, and Osaka, and the total number of victims is estimated to be over 100, including acquaintances, friends, former employees, and landlords of stores and factories who had lent money to President O and had not received it back.

The majority of the vehicles purchased by buyers were minivans and SUVs, including the Toyota Alphard, Toyota Harrier, Suzuki Spacia, and the Mercedes-Benz G-Class among imported cars, with the most common amount per person being around 4 million yen. Simple calculations indicated that the total damage amounted to 400 million yen.

So where did the buyers’ money go?

When you purchase a new car from Dunamis Racing, Dunamis Racing places an order with the dealer for the new car you ordered. Normally, the money paid by the purchaser should have gone to the dealer, but after the new car delivery trouble was discovered, many of the victims contacted the dealers and were told that they had not received an order (for a new car) from Dunamis Racing.

In other words, the money deposited by the buyers to Dunamis Racing was most likely used to pay off another debt that President O. had.

There is another fact that corroborates the “no money in the account” as revealed by the police official. That is the case reported by Nagano Prefecture’s Shinano Mainichi Shimbun on February 16, in which the company was being sued for “nonpayment of 3.29 million yen” The owner of Dunamis Racing’s store and factory and land had filed a lawsuit against Dunamis Racing’s president O and his joint guarantor on November 5, 2011, demanding payment of unpaid rent and surrender of the land and building ..

Oral arguments were held last December and on January 8 this year, and the case was concluded. According to the newspaper, the verdict is expected on March 15.

The “two and a half years” unpaid refers to the two and a half years from 2019 to June 2021. This coincides exactly with the time when Dunamis Racing’s business was rapidly deteriorating and the number of cases of buyers who bought new cars and paid for them, but did not receive them, began to increase.

Still, during the past two and a half years, President O’s account should have received an average of 4 million yen per car, and cash from numerous new car buyers, not just one or two. Normally, he should not have much trouble repaying the “unpaid rent of 3,290,000 yen” that was filed against him. The fact that he still could not pay the rent means that President O was in such financial trouble that he had no choice but to overpay the rent.

Now, what kind of violation of the Road Trucking Vehicle Law, as revealed by the police official in the opening comment, applies to “Dunamis Racing”?

The Road Trucking Vehicle Law is a law that regulates the registration and inspection of motor vehicles and the maintenance and servicing of motor vehicles in order to ensure the safety of motor vehicles and their proper use. In the case of Dunamis Racing, we believe that there is a doubt about the last part, “the business of maintenance and servicing of motor vehicles.

Dunamis Racing is also a “certified factory” authorized by the Hokuriku Shinetsu Transport Bureau to perform overhaul of automobiles. Upon receiving this certification, it is required to register a mechanic with a level 2 or higher qualification as a “chief auto mechanic,” but the police official mentioned above said that it is suspected that Dunamis Racing continued to operate with only the names of mechanics who did not actually exist on its books.

When President O, who had retired from a Nissan dealership, founded Dunamis Racing in 1995, the company offered a variety of car-related services, including sales of new and used cars, vehicle inspections, maintenance, and auto insurance, and had five mechanics ..

However, the company’s business deteriorated after 2011, and President O himself suffered a stroke in 2020, which probably meant that he no longer had the financial means to hire mechanics.

The head of maintenance at Dunamis Racing has been gone for a long time. The president must have asked the mechanic to’lend his name’ to the company in order to protect the’certified factory’ status. In fact, maintenance has not been performed at the Dunamis Racing facility for several years, and vehicle inspections, maintenance, tire changes, repairs, and other services have been delegated to nearby mechanics and gas stations.

The “throwing out” of cars is not a violation of the law, but it is a violation of the law if the company maintained its certified factory status under the name of a mechanic who had retired and no longer existed. Is it?

What should the victim do now?

I paid the full amount, but the car was never delivered … “

Such problems surrounding the purchase of a car are not uncommon. Mr. K, who lives in the Tokai region, suffered a similar problem with a used car he paid for in February 2020. 2.7 million yen, but the car was not delivered after the promised date due to repeated excuses.

Not only that, the used car that was scheduled to be delivered to Mr. K turned out to be a car that had been registered as canceled (scrapped) due to flooding caused by the torrential rains in Kyushu in 2018. There were 80 to 90 other buyers who had purchased cars from the same store and suffered similar damage as Ms. K.

At first, it was said that it would be difficult to build a case of fraud in this case as well, but about seven months after the raid, the manager was arrested. Currently, the manager of the dealership has been incarcerated since around June 2021 , from which he has been appearing in court.

As a representative of the victims, Ms. K has been working steadily to have that manager arrested; without her activities, it would have been difficult to arrest the manager. What can victims of car delivery scams do now?

Mr. K. reveals, “If you think that you are the only one who can solve the problem, you will not be able to exert your power. I can’t do it. If you think about helping others, you can exert your power hundreds of times more. First of all, I made an effort to build a relationship with the police so that I could learn about the status of the investigation by getting to know them well. Whenever I appeared on TV or in newspapers, I always called the police to provide information.

I believe that providing detailed information to the media and having them report on the case in articles and news stories is also very effective in getting the police to take action. The police never do anything about it! Criticizing each other as victims will not get you anywhere.

Currently, the Nagano Prefectural Police are probably collecting various information on President O. However, if the prosecutors decide that the information gathered by the police is still too weak, they will not be able to make an arrest. In the end, it is up to the prosecutors to decide.”

Even in cases where malicious conduct is evident, the hurdle to arrest for fraud is high. However, the victims’ steady activities without giving up will lead to moving a big “mountain.