{"id":610967,"date":"2026-09-25T03:14:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-25T03:14:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/610967\/"},"modified":"2026-09-25T03:14:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-25T03:14:12","slug":"finance-manager-jailed-over-ponzi-scheme-that-defrauded-japanese-investors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/610967\/","title":{"rendered":"Finance manager jailed over Ponzi scheme that defrauded Japanese investors"},"content":{"rendered":"

A former finance manager involved in a multi-million-dollar Ponzi scheme targeting the Japanese community has been jailed and ordered to pay nearly $700,000 in reparations.<\/p>\n

Yuko Hanyu, former head of finance at East Wind Company Limited, was sentenced to six years and four months in the Auckland District Court on Thursday and ordered to pay $691,000 in reparations.<\/p>\n

She must serve at least two years and six months before being eligible for parole.<\/p>\n

A jury found her guilty in April<\/a> on four representative charges of false statement of a promoter, two representative charges of obtaining by deception and one charge of theft by a person in a special relationship.<\/p>\n

Together with director Masatomo Ashikaga, also known as Tom Tanaka, she persuaded people to hand over money by making false claims about investment products and the returns on offer. <\/p>\n

\"East<\/p>\n

East West director Masatomo Ashikaga, also known as Tom Tanaka. (Source: Supplied)<\/p>\n

The pair used their standing in the Japanese community to promote investments that did not exist as described.<\/p>\n

The Group Term Deposit and the Waterloo Fund, the products sold to investors, operated as Ponzi schemes, with money coming in from new investors was used to repay existing ones.<\/p>\n

On top of that, Hanyu took more than $800,000 from East Wind for herself, transferring it to her mortgage account and personal credit card.<\/p>\n

The scheme unravelled after Ashikaga died. The group collapsed in February 2019 and went into liquidation.<\/p>\n

\"SFO<\/p>\n

SFO director Karen Chang (Source: Serious Fraud Office)<\/p>\n

SFO director Karen Chang said Hanyu helped oversee a “large and incredibly complex” Ponzi scheme which deceived investors out of millions.<\/p>\n

“Today\u2019s sentence and the imposition of a minimum period of imprisonment reflects the seriousness of such offending, which undermines legitimate investment markets and threatens New Zealand\u2019s reputation as a safe place to do business”<\/p>\n

Tens of thousands of documents were analysed by SFO investigators and forensic accountants, she said.<\/p>\n

“This included large amounts of detailed financial records, most of which were in Japanese.”<\/p>\n

Chang said many of the investors were based overseas and noted the importance of foreign investment to New Zealand’s economy.<\/p>\n

“Investors must have confidence our markets are fair, safe and well-regulated.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe SFO will continue to prioritise cases which pose a threat to our country\u2019s commercial wellbeing, which is particularly critical in today\u2019s challenging economic environment.”<\/p>\n

The morning’s headlines in 90 seconds, including what caused an Air New Zealand engine to catch fire, and why Liam Lawson’s swearing at Lewis Hamilton. (Source: TVNZ)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A former finance manager involved in a multi-million-dollar Ponzi scheme targeting the Japanese community has been jailed and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":610968,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[51,138,67,111,139,69,244],"class_list":["post-610967","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-auckland","tag-business","tag-crime-and-justice","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-personal-finance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610967","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=610967"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610967\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/610968"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=610967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=610967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=610967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}