Japan Reports 238 Illegal Loan Cases in 2002

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Thursday, January 30, 2003

Japan Reports 238 Illegal Loan Cases in 2002

Japan reported a record 238 illegal loan cases last year, up 28 from 2001, Kyodo News said Thursday.

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Japan reported a record 238 illegal loan cases last year, up 28 from 2001, Kyodo News said Thursday.

According to Kyodo, the financial damages in these cases totaled about 16 billion yen (134 million US dollars).

Illegal loans in which moneylenders press heavily indebted people to pay outrageously high interest are believed to be a financial source of crime syndicates as one in four of these cases involved gangsters, Kyodo said.

The 238 cases included 116 loans by unregistered moneylenders and 208 loans involving illegal interest rates, the agency said, adding 446 people were accused in these cases, Kyodo said.

A typical case was one in which a loan shark pushed people withmultiple debts to borrow 30,000 yen to 50,000 yen (2,500 to 4,200 US dollars) repeatedly. The interest rates charged by such lenderswent up to several thousand percent a year, compared with the maximum legal interest of 29.2 percent per annum.

According to Japan Police Agency, the country also reported large-scale fraud cases last year. The damages totaled about 189 billion yen, the largest figure in the past 10 years, with mostly middle-age housewives targeted.

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