The Okayama District Court sentenced a 55-year-old former insurance investigator to 10 years in prison on Wednesday for setting fire to buildings in four prefectures and defrauding insurers out of about ¥128 million, the Asahi Shimbun reported.
Masayuki Fukamachi, of no fixed address and unemployed, was convicted of arson of non-residential structures, fraud and attempted fraud. Presiding Judge Seishi Misawa handed down the term against a prosecution request for 14 years.
Prosecutors said Fukamachi conspired with Hiroshi Inaba, 58, also of no fixed address and unemployed, who is charged with the same offenses. The pair burned four properties, including traditional wooden houses that Inaba effectively owned, in Gifu, Hokkaido, Okayama and Aomori prefectures in 2022 and 2023.
Some of the buildings were destroyed and others partly burned. The men then claimed the insurance. The four properties had cost a combined ¥5.45 million, against about ¥128 million in payouts.
Fukamachi carried out the fires himself. To make them look like electrical accidents, he set them near power outlets and batteries.
Knowledge from the inside
Fukamachi belonged to a major insurance investigation company until around the end of fiscal 2022. Drawing on his experience as an investigator, he advised Inaba on how to deal with the insurers, according to the prosecution.
The pair called the scheme "kominka business" — kominka meaning old traditional houses — and looked for cheap vacant homes. They took out large policies on properties bought for tens of thousands to millions of yen.
One former owner said he had doubted anyone would really live in such a property but sold it because he could not manage it. He let go of a vacant house about 50 years old for roughly ¥600,000.
Atsushi Hirasawa, a professor of commerce at Chuo University who studies the damage insurance system, said the former investigator played a large role. Insurers in principle cannot write policies worth more than the property, because they cannot pay out more than a thing is worth.
Even so, specialist knowledge and experience may have let the men extract payouts above the real value, he said.