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Man Blows Whole Of Town's Covid Relief Fund After It Appears In His Account
Featured Image Credit: Alamy

Man Blows Whole Of Town's Covid Relief Fund After It Appears In His Account

A Japanese man spent his town's entire Covid relief fund in two weeks.

Shola Lee

Shola Lee

A 24-year-old had his entire town's Covid relief fund transferred into his account and we'll give you one guess what he did with it.

Yep, back in April, the young lad blew through ¥46.3m (around £287,000) in two weeks after embarking on an insane online gambling spree with the surprising sum.

While this story sounds like it's all fun and games, the funds were supposed to go to 463 low-income households who had been struggling amid the pandemic.

The man blew through the money in just two weeks.
Alamy

So, how did the mistake happen? Well, it involves a floppy disk and online banking.

According to Japan Today, officials had compiled a list of names for the people due to receive the relief funds, they put these names on a floppy disk and gave them to the bank.

We're going to ignore 2000-style tech because that actually wasn't the problem.

The problem was that the names were also sent to the bank online, with the now infamous man's name at the top.

The bank sent the money to the wrong account.
Alamy

Mistakenly the bank thought this was the sole account to transfer funds to, which is where things got pretty hairy.

When officials noticed the mistake they contacted the man, hoping he'd send it back because, you know, it wasn't his money to begin with.

Instead, records show the man spent all of the money between 8-21 April on online gambling. Responding to authorities, the man said: "I've already moved the money. It can't be returned," as reported by the BBC.

The money was supposed to be part of a Covid relief package.
Alamy

While it seemed like the man would face the music, with him reportedly saying 'it cannot be undone any more. I will not run. I will pay for my crime', he has since disappeared.

And, seeing as the man has no assets and quit his job as a shop worker upon receiving the money, the town isn't expected to recoup its losses.

As you can imagine, people were pretty annoyed about the incident, with Norihiko Hamada, mayor of Abu, saying the town 'will do our utmost to take back the large amount of public money'.

While the town is unlikely to be repaid by the man, the households who had the extra income taken are said to have been paid ¥100,000 since the incident.

The man is being sued by the The Abu Municipal Government for 51m yen, including legal fees.

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Topics: News, Money, World News

Shola Lee began her journalism career while studying for her undergraduate degree at Queen Mary, University of London and Columbia University in New York. She has written for the Columbia Spectator, QM Global Bloggers, CUB Magazine, UniDays, and Warner Brothers' Wizarding World Digital. Recently, Shola took part in the 2021 BAFTA Crew and BBC New Creatives programme before becoming a journalist at UNILAD, where she works on breaking news, trending stories, and features.