Legendary Japanese music producer Tetsuya Komuro was arrested on Tuesday morning (Nov 4) on suspicion of fraud and could face up to 10 years of jail term.
The 49-year-old is alleged to have scammed an investor of 500 million yen (~$5mil USD) in 2006 by selling copyrights of 806 tunes which he written but did not own the rights.
Komuro lost a civil suit in July 2008 in which he was ordered to pay 600 million yen to the investor as compensation, but he didn’t manage to do so by the deadline (Sept 30), thus prompted the investor to file a police report.
Komuro is widely regarded as the most successful J-pop music producer in 1990s. He was the producer for top Japanese stars like Namie Amuro, TRF, Ami Suzuki, Ryoko Shinohara and Hitomi etc… it’s estimated that more than 170 million copies of his production were sold over the years.
Komuro was then one of the richest entertainers in Japan with over USD100 million of wealth. His music career has however been declining since 2000, and his investment failure in 2001-2004 has sunk him into financial trouble which he obviously couldn’t manage to recover.
Update [May 2009] – Komuro received a five-year suspended jail term, which means he wouldn’t need to go to jail if he behaves properly during the period.
Komuro has his ex-boss Masato Matsuura to thank for; the president of Avex Group provided money for Komuro to repay the debts, which probably make the different between a suspended or actual jail sentence.
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ai… the fall of a legend. he almost single handedly create the j-pop wave.
what investment was he involved in btw? it’s not easy to loss $100 million of wealth.
The only huge investment I know is a music production company in HK, but that alone probably won’t cost him $100m… there’s probably another few more here and there.
Ahhh! Alimony the root of all fraud. I doubt if they can put down Tk easily. I mean he’s no Phil Spector. Anyways, in case Tk you got out of jail you can always migrate to our country (RP) coz nobody respect music rights here. Nobody goes to jail for stealing music.
I guess you all dont know much about his ‘EGO”???
Mansions in almost every single major city around the world, including a huge place in Hawaii with full recording studio!!
Reserving the entire 1st class section of every plane he would ride, just to make sure he go privacy???
He ego sent him into this debt, along with his dubious connections…..if you know what I mean??
100 million is actually easy to spend, when you think the ride will “Never End”
Look at Mike Tyson…I mean come on!!!! this moron had 100’s of millions and is Busted broke!!
It is sad to see these crazy ego’s on display, and see how the deal with fame, and th $ that comes with the territory!!
Same goes for the little twinkie boys from the “GAY HOUSE OF JHONNYS” I mean these kids think they are farking superstars here in the USA, but noone, absolutley no one knows them. Yet there they are not allowing 2 maybe 3 young girls to get autographs????
Truly “ROBOTS”
Oh well Japan has made some fun things, I love Shibuya and it’s crazy girls…..they make it fun to live there!!!