Chapter 194 - Name and Reality 117 {145 Solo} (345–346: Closing in on the Isaka Family Extortionist 1)
Thursday, October 17th. Nishida and Yoshimura had obtained permission and were meeting with Isaka Masamitsu, who was being held at the Kitami Station. This was to confirm information about the person who had been extorting his father, Daikichi, and Masamitsu himself—specifically, the true holder of the dummy account into which the Isaka father and son had been transferring money.
Masamitsu's detention was likely to continue for a while due to the solicitation of the series of construction company shootings, but perhaps because he had confessed and felt refreshed, his complexion was relatively good and he looked healthy.
"There's no mistake that the account name is 'Fukuda Fusajiro,' right?"
Nishida had Masamitsu write the account name in kanji in his memo pad, which served as his investigation diary, and was reconfirming what he had already known.
"There's no mistake. It's an ordinary savings account at the Abashiri branch of Hokumo Bank under that name. I've had my family confirm the account number and inform my lawyer, so check with him."
Masamitsu said this and leaned back against the chair's backrest, as if to say he was finished with what he had to say.
"Understood. I'll check it later then. Anyway, I'm grateful for your cooperation in this matter. I owe you one. By the way, I'm concerned about this now of all times, but what will happen to the company?"
Nishida tucked the memo pad into his breast pocket and touched upon the matter of the Isaka Group. No matter how much of a criminal he was, since the investigation had resulted in crushing a company of a certain scale, it was impossible for Nishida's heart not to ache at all.
"Regarding that, I had Yoshimaru Construction in Obihiro take over the company and the employees by transferring them for free. Fortunately, after disposing of some assets, not many debts remained, so the creditors were satisfied... For the Isaka family, it's one thing, but I'm glad we could avoid causing trouble for the employees."
He said this and let out a deep sigh.
"I see... It's not my place to say, but well, that's for the best... After that, it's just a matter of how you'll atone for your crimes... If you can just think about that..."
As Nishida spoke to him in an admonishing tone while hesitating,
"But since what's done is done, I wonder how much meaning there is in reflecting or not reflecting for the people I've troubled..." Masamitsu lamented.
However, as if suddenly remembering, he looked up at Nishida and Yoshimura.
"Oh, I almost forgot! Regarding the gold dust and cash my old man was keeping, I've explained it properly to my family, so if it's in a state where it can be handed over, tell the lawyer anytime. I've told him to hand it over to you guys through the lawyer."
He spoke hurriedly.
"Ah, now that you mention it, there was that too..."
Yoshimura didn't hide that he had completely forgotten, but Nishida's head was also full of other investigations, and this had also been completely 'neglected.'
"Setting aside Mende's son, regarding Hojo's younger brother, I actually met him seven years ago, and even if he doesn't live there now, I think there's plenty of ways to find him, so I'll report once I've looked into it. Well, that's all for today. Sorry for everything."
Nishida said this, and the two stood up.
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They returned straight to the Kitami Regional HQ, and after getting the account number from the lawyer, they immediately contacted the Abashiri branch of Hokumo Bank. Then, in about an hour, a call came back from the branch side. It seemed they had indeed identified it as a dummy account about two years ago and provisionally frozen it. And the bank also explained the circumstances under which that was discovered.
At the address in Abashiri City provided for the dummy account holder, Fukuda Fusajiro, there was a house where a person named 'Fukuda Yoshio' was the head of the household, which actually existed and was not a dummy. However, that Fukuda Yoshio had apparently passed away suddenly about two years ago. A piece of registered mail from the bank was delivered there, but since Fukuda had lived alone, it was naturally undelivered and returned to the bank.
When the bank investigated and got in touch with Fukuda Yoshio's bereaved family, it turned out that there had never been a person named Fusajiro in the family. Since bank envelopes and the like had been normally received during Yoshio's lifetime, it was initially thought that the dummy account was just an account Yoshio had held under a different name.
However, while things remained unclear, the account was left frozen, and the true owner of the dummy account, who could no longer withdraw money, came storming into the bank, which clearly revealed it was someone else's dummy account. However, that person was naturally pointed out for having a pseudonym account, and when asked for identification, they reportedly gave up and left.
The account had been opened at the Abashiri branch in the 1950s. At that time, identification was not properly carried out, and one could make dummy accounts as much as they wanted, so it seems such cases were not exactly rare in the past. However, mostly around the time cash cards began to spread, thanks to address verification when delivering them and identification when handing them over directly at the counter, most dummy accounts had disappeared or been resolved by the 1980s.
However, regarding this account, because it was made at the address of a person with the surname Fukuda, although it wasn't Yoshio's own account, it had apparently gone completely undetected for many years. The bereaved family also had no idea for whom Yoshio had lent his address or for whom he had made the account, and it seems the bank had just left it frozen until now.
Under the Customer Identification Law (Author's Note: explained later), the bank side has no obligation to contact the police, so it seems it was just left alone. Furthermore, for bank accounts, the statute of limitations is basically five years until the right expires (in the first place, it's unusual for a bank to invoke the statute of limitations to seize deposits), so there seems to have been a judgment that leaving it as is was fine.
※※※※※※※ Author's Note: Postscript
The Customer Identification Law—the "Law Concerning Customer Identification, etc. by Financial Institutions, etc." and the "Law Concerning Customer Identification, etc. by Financial Institutions, etc. and Prevention of Improper Use of Deposit Accounts, etc."—while it may punish individuals who create dummy accounts, although it required identification and transaction records from the bank side, it seems it did not require notification to investigative agencies.
Furthermore, the Customer Identification Law was reportedly abolished with the full enforcement of the "Act on Prevention of Transfer of Criminal Proceeds" after March 2008.
https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%9C%AC%E4%BA%BA%E7%A2%BA%E8%AA%8D%E6%B3%95
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The next morning, Friday, October 18th. Nishida and Yoshimura were heading toward the Abashiri branch of Hokumo Bank with Yoshimura driving. They had already made an appointment for the hearing regarding the series of circumstances with the branch manager at the stage of yesterday.
The temperature had dropped below 5 degrees in the early morning, and they felt the footsteps of winter approaching, but by the time Nishida and the others headed for Abashiri, it had exceeded 10 degrees, and they didn't feel it was particularly cold.
In less than an hour, they slid into the parking lot of the Abashiri branch, and were met by the branch manager, Suzuhara, at the appointed time of 11:00. After a brief self-introduction, they were immediately shown to the branch manager's office and guided to a reception set. It was a sofa far more comfortable to sit on than the one in the Headquarters Chief's office at the Kitami Regional HQ, but they didn't settle in deeply, and after just one sip of the tea served by a female employee, they immediately entered the hearing.
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"Still, I wonder if it would have been better to contact the police after all."
Suzuhara, who gave the impression of a typical banker and looked like a stiff person wearing glasses, first nervously sought the opinion of the two, but Nishida spoke to calm him down.
"No, no. If you had a clear conviction or information that it was being used for a crime, then such action would have been necessary, but since the person who made the transfer (that is, Isaka Masamitsu) had not reported any criminal damage, there is absolutely no fault on the part of Hokumo-san."
"I see, I'm glad to hear you say that. Since there was nothing of the sort and there was no problem under the law, we just left it alone, but since the true owner of the dummy account came in with their blood boiling, I might have been able to be a bit more attentive..."
Suzuhara said this and nervously moved the bridge in the middle of his glasses up and down slightly a few times with his index finger.
Then, taking paper documents he had likely prepared from his desk and placing them on the table,
"First, this is the information on the movement of money in the account," he said, handing them to Nishida. Nishida checked them so Yoshimura could also see.
The account was opened in May of Showa 31 (1956) at the Abashiri branch. Initially, 3,000 yen was deposited every month, and from around Showa 35 (1960), 5,000 yen was deposited every month—not as a fixed-term deposit, but in fixed amounts. After the full amount was withdrawn at once in Showa 40, there were occasionally deposits and withdrawals of a few hundred thousand at most, and it could be said there was almost no major movement in the account itself.
However, from October of Heisei 4 (1992), it suddenly began to move significantly with the transfer of two million yen under the name 'ISAKA DAIKICHI,' and it could be seen that it was in a clearly different situation than before (Author's Note: Nowadays, the bank would likely check if an account moved like this, but this is based on the premise that it wasn't so much the case in the past. To be honest, it might be a questionable amount even back then...). Quite a lot of money moved after that as well, but within less than a year, the amount transferred became 200,000 every month, and after that, transfers of 150,000 every month under the name 'ISAKA MASAMITSU' continued until the account was frozen. This point was as per Masamitsu's testimony, and it seemed there were basically no large amounts of deposits into the account other than from the Isaka family.
On the other hand, initially quite a lot of money was withdrawn or transferred elsewhere, but after that, once the transfer amount from the Isaka family decreased and became continuous, half the amount disappeared as donations to social contribution organizations like the Ashinaga Foundation or the Red Cross. The rest, he had likely withdrawn himself. This was one of the factors that had caused Section 1 Head Kurano of the Kitami Regional HQ back in 1995 to mistakenly believe that "the Isaka family seems to be evading taxes, but they're also donating that much," and to pass on notifying the National Tax Agency (Light and Shadow 22).
The two of them checked the account status intently for a while, then looked up from the documents.
"In an account that hadn't had much movement for a while, large amounts of money suddenly moved; wasn't there any check from the bank side?" Yoshimura confirmed.
"There probably was, but they likely confirmed it with the person who made the transfer, didn't they? Regarding the situation at the time, I haven't been able to confirm that far, so it's just a guess..."
With the branch manager's answer, the two were also convinced that if the person making the transfer was Isaka Daikichi, a local notable of the Isaka Group, it wouldn't have become any more of a problem.
"And so, a suspicion arose that the account was a dummy, and after it was frozen, the person who came storming in was this person. Since it's an image from a security camera, it's not exactly clear, but I think the face is recognizable to some extent..."
As he said this, he handed Nishida a new sheet of color-copied paper. That must be none other than the person who extorted the Isaka family.
Nishida received the paper with a snap and immediately stared at the image part, but after making an expression as if saying "Huh?", he immediately brought his face close to the paper, then conversely moved it away and narrowed his eyes further. Then, "It's often said that people can look alike, but..." he muttered as if in a trance.
Yoshimura, who was watching the situation, 'gently' snatched the paper from Nishida and looked through it, and after letting out a short "Ah," he also brought his face close to the paper and checked it for a while. Then, slowly,
"They certainly... look alike... That said, it's said that there are seven people in the world who look like you, or something like that." He spoke to Nishida.
"Well, it's an image that can't exactly be called clear."
Immediately after Nishida said that to Yoshimura, he was suddenly struck by a thought as if hit by lightning. Just like that, in a hurry,
"Excuse me! Is there a computer here connected to the internet?" he asked Suzuhara.
"Yes, if mine is alright..."
The branch manager answered and stood up, and while returning to his seat, he seemed to be searching for Nishida's intent quite suspiciously, but Nishida didn't react to that either, concentrating on fully recovering his old memories. Then,
"There's something I want to look up. I'm sorry for the trouble, but if it's a site viewable from a mobile phone, the amount of information might be limited..."
While saying this, he approached the desk following Suzuhara's guidance, and without even sitting in the chair, with the branch manager still standing beside him, he began to fiddle with the laptop. And after typing something, almost without a moment's delay, he remained hanging his head while saying just one word: "Ah..."