Yuji Nakathe co-creator of sonic and former head of developer sonic-teamwas arrested for insider trading in Tokyo on November 18, 2022.
A case around Dragon Quest Tact
For those who don’t know what insider trading is, it is quite simply a matter of using privileged information, which is unavailable to the public, in order to carry out advantageous financial movements.
Here, Yuji Naka allegedly bought shares from the developer aiming in early 2020, based on inside information that Aiming was developing a Dragon Quest mobile game, dubbed Dragon Quest Tact. Yuiji Naka was working at that time at Square-Enix and therefore had access to this information while the game had not yet been announced to the general public.
The Special Investigations Unit of the Tokyo District Prosecutor’s Office, which made the arrest, said Naka bought 10,000 shares of Aiming for about 2.8 million yen ($20,000) after learning about Dragon Quest Tact in late January 2020.
Square Enix alumni also arrested
The old woman of Yuji Naka’s arrest, Taisuke Sazaki and Fumiaki Suzuki, formerly employed by Square Enix, were also arrested by the Japanese police, for the same reasons. Indeed, these would have, according to the investigators, bought for 47 million yen ($336,000) worth of Aiming shares between late 2019 and early 2020after Suzuki learned of Dragon Quest Tact in November 2019.
“We have fully cooperated with the requests of the Securities and Exchange Supervisory Commission,” Square Enix said in an official statement following the arrests. “We deeply regret the great concern this has caused to all involved. We have dealt with this incident strictly, including taking internal disciplinary action against the suspected employees.”