A Mysterious Death of a Brilliant President in Hibiya Park Toilet

Less than a year ago, the body of a man was found in a bathroom in Hibiya Park, Tokyo. He was Kenji Takimoto (49 years old). He was a man who had temporarily become a darling of the financial world with his “Social Lending (SL)” method. Why did he die, and was it really “suicide”? Continuing from the first part of this report, our reporter, who has been in contact with Mr. Takimoto, will try to get to the bottom of the matter. 

 

The man’s death was a suicide.

In October 2009, the Tokyo Stock Exchange designated Terra Inc. as an issue on the special caution market. This was due to a series of false disclosures concerning clinical trials and regulatory approval of the Corona drug in Mexico.

In September 2009, the Tokyo District Court decided to initiate bankruptcy proceedings against Senne, and the company is currently in bankruptcy proceedings. In December 2009, Terra filed a lawsuit against Kaoru Takemori and three other former employees of Senne for the 100 million yen damages with the Tokyo District Court.

I felt Mr. Takemori’s “manliness,” but I did not trust him. We had even notarized the shares and secured them, so we thought we could collect the money no matter what kind of person he was. However, the stock price remained down. What was more surprising was that he had pledged collateral to other people as well. Legally, I am at the top of the collateral ranking, but unlike real estate, stocks have to be transferred to my account. If they did that first, I would be out. Moreover, the more I looked into it, the more other things came up. I knew this guy was a bad guy.

Despite his indignation, he did not feel the urgency of being cornered. Mr. Takimoto also said, “I was very angry, but I did not feel any sense of urgency.”

“I had collected up to 80 billion yen with maneo. There were mistakes, but there was never a default. I am good at making money, so I can make money again. Besides, I hope the Mexico story is true. Even with double collateral, if the stock price has tripled or quintupled, it’s nothing.”

However, it is a fact that Mr. Takemori has committed so many illegal acts. If this man continues to go unchecked, he will surely do the same thing again. For the sake of the next person who has relations with him, I think he should be locked up.

Rather than recovering the financial damage he had been deceived into investing in Takemori, he was more focused on making him criminally liable. In fact, Mr. Takimoto provided information to the Prosecutor’s Office, the Metropolitan Police Department, the Securities and Exchange Surveillance Commission, the Tokyo Stock Exchange, and other investigative and supervisory authorities.

After the interview, we once shared a drinking party at a tavern. Over a cup of Shaoxing sake, Mr. Takimoto spoke passionately about the path he had taken and the work he had done.

His parents were ordinary businessmen. I grew up in a public housing complex, and when I was in elementary school, I worked as a newspaper delivery boy because I wanted to have some free money. My parents started a business and were not home when I was in high school. I hated studying and dropped out after a month to work as a construction worker. He re-entered high school in the middle of the year, but failed the college entrance exam. During my time at Daizemi, I watched a rental video of “Trucker” and yearned to be a truck driver, so I stopped taking college entrance exams and really became a truck driver.

At that time, as I gripped the steering wheel, I thought newspaper delivery and drivers are just parts that move and carry things. Construction workers also move from one job site to another. Am I a slave to carry things? Let’s do a movement to liberate me! I decided to apply for college again and became a university student at the age of 21.

When I was 32 years old working as a salaried employee, there was an event in which Hollimon tried to take over Kintetsu Corporation. When I saw that, I thought I had to go into the world of finance, where money makes money. I named it “Finance Village”. I decided to start with real estate, so I apprenticed myself to someone, and at 39 I bought maneo.”

His passionate tone of voice seemed to convey a mixture of confidence and anxiety as he struggled to find a goal in life, a life goal he named “Finance Village,” and climbed desperately to it. I could not imagine him taking his own life.

Was his “death” really suicide? During the course of our interviews, we were able to talk to several acquaintances who were close to Mr. Takimoto. We caught a glimpse of a different face from the one shown in the interviews and at the bar.

Mr. Takimoto also provided a loan of hundreds of millions of yen to Mr. Ikuta (Naoyuki) of Techno Systems (a solar power generation-related company). We were personally close friends and often visited the site together for Techno’s solar power generation business projects. When Mr. Ikuta was arrested, he was shown on TV singing karaoke at a cabaret club as he pleased, and I was shocked to hear that he would be shown like this when he was arrested.

He himself liked to sing at snack bars and did not drink like that, but he was afraid of being arrested. He was afraid that he might violate the Money Lending Business Act because he was paying back the money at a high interest rate. He was a very self-conscious person, not wanting his private parts to be seen.”

In May 2009, the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office arrested three people, including Naoyuki Ikuta, president of Techno Systems, on fraud charges.

Another acquaintance, who has known Mr. Takimoto since his maneo days, said, “He has been arrested for fraud.

The new maneo he sold had dozens of lawsuits from investors and was almost certain to lose. The management was trying to claim the back end of those lawsuits from Mr. Takimoto personally, and the structure was in place. A notice to that effect was sent around May of 2009, and I was under a lot of mental pressure. I think it was difficult, not only in terms of the amount of money involved, but also in the sense of despair that I was being sued by a company that I had nurtured for so long.

As for maneo’s responsibility to its investors, Takimoto himself stated. He said this in a conversation with a Sene employee who was suffering from unpaid wages, uploaded to the “Terra Sene Theater. ” It is believed to have been made around December 2008.

‘I’m not legally responsible, but I’ve caused about 30 billion yen in trouble for my investors. Then, when I was thinking about making 30 billion yen, I was introduced to Mr. Takemori. I thought it was interesting, and yes, that’s how it turned out.”

He told a similar story to my interview.

He posted, “(Social Lending) is a product that can go to zero. I’m keeping quiet because it’s not worth mentioning, but we have caused about 30 billion yen in trouble to investors. It is up to me to make up for it, isn’t it? Just chipping away at the real estate and freight money business is not fast enough. Then I met Takemori and said, ‘This guy is pretty amazing. （That was my motivation (for investing in SENE).

These statements show Mr. Takimoto’s persistent desire to compensate investors for the 30 billion yen loss he has caused through the social lending business he has fostered and nurtured.

He said, “A lot of things were concentrated all at once in May ’21. I heard that by the end of May, he was in a state where he could not sleep without a sleep aid. People who knew him in those days said, ‘I don’t think it was suicide, but rather suicide.

Mr. Takimoto found his goal as a “finance village” and established himself as a “revolutionary in the finance industry” with his business model of social lending, even if only for a short time. No doubt it was unforgivable for him to leave the losses he inflicted on investors untouched. When he realized that the Sene trial was a fiction, Mr. Takimoto may have been prepared and chose to “take his own life,” but on the other hand, I still remember what he said to me at our last drinking session.

I always record myself when I meet with people. I still do.”

It may have been said out of prudence, but for some people, that one word may have resulted in stepping on the “tiger’s tail of the heart. Was there really no “incident”? Whenever I recall Mr. Takimoto’s face as he spoke confidently of his beliefs during interviews and at the bar, this thought remains with me to this day.