Lavish nights at Club Godfather opened door to Japan pension fund bribery case

“I thought the money was a thank you for all I had done and a plea for my future cooperation,” That's how you say bribe in polite Japanese.

This could all be avoided with one simple move: put all the pension money into index funds. You'd get historically guaranteed returns, no hefty commissions to aggressive and ultrawealthy snakeoil salesmen and no scandals.

This is the great untold story that the financial industry doesn't want any of us to know.

The Champagne and geisha entertainment business might suffer, though.

@JeffLee "put all the pension money into index funds!

That's a really good idea ... as far as stock investment goes. Not so sure its a good idea o invest 100% of any pension fund in a stock market however, as they periodically crash with a probability approaching certainty in the last quarter century.

Bribery can come in many forms. In Japan, it's called entertainment.

I get all these random calls from kabushiki-gaishas about not paying my pension and it all makes sense now.

"Crackdown"??? No jail time! This is a crackdown?

So, embezzle a billion bucks and get suspended sentence? Awesome!

@Jack Stern -"Bribery can come in many forms in Japan." That is true, but many companies hide the bribes as fees. Have you ever rented a property in Japan? 40,000 yen to change the lock (takes an hour costs about 10,000), three months rent 'key money' that disappears into cyber space, transaction fee of 10-20,000, cleaning fee of 80,000 yen or more and more little fees that disappear. When I rented my place they actually told me that one month's rent was 'gift money' for the owner. WTF!!! I think Segorni Weaver said it best in Avatar, "You are pissing on me without having the courtesy to call it rain!"

If he didn't know what a bribe was how the hell did he get this job?

Kimono clad? That's a bit lame. This whole enteertainment scam in Japan is next to get the full treatment. already SESC and JFSA are sitting up and notivcing the abuses in this spece.

This guy accepts bribes, hands over a sixth of the pension funds, and gets a suspended sentence? Japanese justice at its finest!

“I thought the money was a thank you for all I had done and a plea for my future cooperation,” Takahama told a Sapporo court last month

Thick or what, of course it was a thank you bribe, I mean a payment.

AIJ Investment Advisors was shut down for defrauding pensioners of more than $1 billion.

This whole industry is riddled with thieves, scammers, crooks, robbers, bribers and other low lifes, because they wear a suit and work for a big name company and smile while robbing the people does not make them any different from some one who robs people on the street.

The old saying, give a man a gun he can rob a bank, but give a man a bank he can rob everyone.

I wouldn't mind checking out this Club Godfather joint out - do they let white guys in?

Club Godfather, a discrete watering hole

Surely the writer meant "discreet"?

Regardless of the word choice, though, I would like to see both the briber and the bribed in cases like this getting serious sentences, and not suspended ones, either.

LOL. OK, who wouldn't see this coming as soon as they learned they're meeting their acquaintance at a club named "GODFATHER"?

This should be under comedy??

We have done a lot of business in Japan and in particular at hostess bars, I am a terrible golfer so it was definitely a preferable option.

Awkward