Police on Wednesday arrested the president and a former employee of failed travel agency Tellmeclub, which offered budget overseas tours, on suspicion of defrauding a bank of about ¥200 million ($1.76 million) in loans by window-dressing earnings data.
The travel agency, headed by 67-year-old Chikako Yamada, filed for bankruptcy in late March with debts of close to ¥15.1 billion, after collecting roughly ¥9.9 billion in advance payments from between 80,000 to 90,000 customers across Japan.
Yamada and Toshiyuki Sasai, 36, who was in charge of accounting, admitted to the allegations, which included the forging of earnings statements presented to Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp. between June and September 2016, according to the police.
The two are suspected of fraudulently securing the loans on the pretext of chartering aircraft, despite the firm's poor financial condition that eventually resulted in postwar Japan's fourth-biggest tourism industry bankruptcy.
The Tokyo-based tour agency started window-dressing its financial statements by posting fictitious profits the previous business year, even before it fell into negative net worth in the year through September 2014, according to its bankruptcy administrator.
Tellmeclub, which was established in 1998 and once thrived on online reservations, found it increasingly difficult to provide budget tours to destinations such as Hawaii and Guam due to rising advertising and labor costs, as well as a weaker yen that pushed up its foreign-currency denominated payments.
Source: ANNnewsCH
