Enten controversy

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The Enten controversy involved Kazutsugi Nami, the chairman of Tokyo bedding supplier Ladies & Gentlemen (L&G), arrested by Japanese police on 5 February 2009. He and twenty-one other executives were accused of defrauding 37,000 investors of at least 126 billion yen (approximately US$1.4 billion) between 2001 and 2009. Nami is the inventor of a quasi-currency, "Enten", which he used to attract investors. Some sources put the total amount of the money involved as high as 226 billion yen, which would make it, if proven, to be the biggest investment fraud in Japanese history since Toyota Shoji, an investment group, defrauded investors of 202.5 billion yen in the late '80s. In order to gain credibility and popularity, Nami's company used famous enka singers such as Takashi Hosokawa in their advertisements. In May 2008, Hosokawa was accused by the Japanese civil court of participating, but he insisted that he was not responsible for the content of their advertisement.