OSAKA (TR) – Osaka Prefectural Police have arrested a 62-year-old accounting manager accused of siphoning millions of yen from his employer to lavish online tips on female live streamers.
According to the Sankei Shimbun (Oct. 22), the massive theft that ultimately drove the company into bankruptcy.
Yoshinori Kikuno, a resident of Daito City, was arrested by the Fuse Police Station on suspicion of professional embezzlement, authorities announced on October 22.
Upon his arrest, Kikuno admitted to the allegations and revealed the true scale of his crimes. “I embezzled more than 200 million yen,” he reportedly told investigators.
When asked about his motives, Kikuno confessed that the stolen funds were squandered on personal entertainment and online “Super Chats” or digital tips to female content creators.
According to police, Kikuno exploited his position as the head of accounting for an industrial machinery manufacturer based in Higashiosaka City. When processing bulk wire transfers to multiple legitimate business partners, Kikuno would discreetly slip his own bank account information into the batches, allowing him to bypass detection.
The official arrest charges allege that Kikuno fraudulently transferred approximately 59 million yen from the company’s accounts to his own across more than 60 separate transactions over a six-month period between March and September.
The embezzlement was finally uncovered when the company launched an internal investigation after noticing suspicious discrepancies in its accounting ledgers. Police accepted a criminal complaint from the firm in April of last year.
The massive financial hemorrhage proved to be a fatal blow to the manufacturer, which has since gone bankrupt due to the severe impact of Kikuno’s actions.