JAPANESE police yesterday pursued their crackdown on a bizarre cult that promises to cure illness diagnosed by "reading" the soles of the feet.
Nine officials of the Honohana Sanpogyo cult were arrested on suspicion of fraudulently amassing a fortune by persuading followers that they could escape illness by making large donations to the cult.
The latest round-up brought to 24 the number of Honohana leaders under arrest over a fraud said to have netted more than £560 million. The cult's guru, Hogen Fukunaga, 55, who claims supernatural powers, was arrested last month after four years of investigation.
People "diagnosed" with fatal illnesses attended the sect's training sessions at a cost of thousands of pounds.
Police say Mr Fukunaga used much of the money collected to fund a lavish lifestyle in a luxury flat and to pay himself a three million yen (£18,000) monthly salary.
Police arrested nine members of the Ho-no-Hana Sampogyo religious group Tuesday for allegedly swindling 14 people out of about 57 million yen by falsely telling them that they would suffer cancer unless they participated in its training program. The total number of arrests made among those linked to the cult now stands at 19.
Atsushi Yamaguchi, 36, a high-ranking member of the foot-reading cult, and Machiko Sato, 47, an adviser to the cult, were among the nine members arrested Tuesday on suspicion of fraud.
The suspects were accused of defrauding 14 people, including housewives, out of a total of 56.87 million yen by falsely telling them the cult members possessed supernatural powers to heal their diseases.
A joint investigative force of the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) and Shizuoka Prefectural Police also raided four locations linked to the cult the same day, including the homes of Yamaguchi and Sato in Tokyo's Meguro-ku and Shibuya-ku, respectively.
A day earlier, police served new arrest warrants on 10 people linked to the cult on suspicion of fraud, including the cult's former head, Hogen Fukunaga, 55, whose real first name is Teruyoshi.
According to police, Yamaguchi and other suspects allegedly conspired with Fukunaga in defrauding the massive amount of cash out of the 14 people between January 1995 and January 1996.
In the large-scale scam, the cult members threatened that the victims would "contract cancer" if they did nothing about it.
The members further solicited the victims to join training sessions that the members falsely asserted would heal the participants' illnesses.
All in all, the foot-reading cult, based in Fuji, Shizuoka Prefecture, is suspected of defrauding at least 30,000 people out of more than 87 billion yen.
TOKYO (AP) - Nine members of a religious cult that claimed to cure diseases by inspecting the soles of people's feet were arrested Tuesday for allegedly defrauding believers and their families out of hundreds of thousands of dollars, police said.
Ho-no-Hana Sampogyo senior cult member Atsushi Yamaguchi, 36, and the eight other members are believed to have tricked 14 believers out of $538,000 in 1995 and 1996, according to Tokyo police.
The suspects are thought to have told believers suffering from cancer that their condition would not improve unless they and their families attended retreats run by the cult.
Police believe the cult has swindled as many as 30,000 people out of $822 million, police said.
More than a thousand former Ho-no-Hana members have sued the cult seeking a total of $51 million in damages. The members claim they were swindled by being told they would get cancer or other diseases unless they handed over exorbitant fees.
A total of 24 cult members have been arrested on charges of fraud, the spokesman said. He said it was too early to speculate on what penalties they may face.
Following a four-year investigation into Ho-no-Hana, police in early May arrested charismatic cult founder Hogen Fukunaga, 55, on suspicion of fraud. He was later indicted.
Fukunaga founded the neo-Buddhist cult in 1987, claiming that he was privy to the ``voice of heaven.''
Fukunaga drew national attention because of his opulent lifestyle and the lavish cult facilities.
Japanese police have been cracking down on fringe religious groups since late last year, when a senior member of the doomsday cult involved in the 1995 nerve gas attack on Tokyo's subways was released from prison.
Nine members of a religious cult that claimed to cure diseases by inspecting the soles of people's feet were arrested on Tuesday for allegedly defrauding believers and their families out of tens of millions of yen, police said.
Ho-no-Hana Sampogyo senior cult member Atsushi Yamaguchi, 36, and the eight other members are believed to have tricked 14 believers out of 56.9 million yen (HK$4.2 million) in 1995 and 1996, said a Tokyo Metropolitan police spokesman who demanded anonymity.
The suspects are thought to have told believers suffering from cancer that their condition would not improve unless they and their families attended retreats run by the cult, he said.
Police believe the cult has swindled as many as 30,000 people out of a total 87 billion yen (HK$6.4 billion), said the spokesman.
More than a thousand former Ho-no-Hana members have filed lawsuits against the cult seeking a total of 5.4 billion yen (HK$397 million) in damages. They paid an average of 4 million yen (HK$294,000) to join the group, according to a lawyer handling their claims.
In total, 24 cult members have now been arrested on charges of fraud, the spokesman said. He said it was too early to speculate on what penalties the suspects face.
Following a four-year investigation into Ho-no-Hana, police in early May arrested charismatic cult founder Hogen Fukunaga, 55, on suspicion of fraud. Fukunaga was indicted later that month.
On Monday, police issued new arrest warrants for Fukunaga and nine other members of the group on charges of fraud. Japanese police sometimes serve multiple arrest warrants even when suspects are awaiting trial in detention.
Fukunaga founded the neo-Buddhist cult in 1987, claiming that he was privy to the ''voice of heaven''.
Fukunaga drew national attention because of the opulence of his lifestyle and the lavishness of cult facilities.
Japanese police have been cracking down on fringe religious groups since late last year, when a senior member of the doomsday cult involved in the 1995 nerve gas attack on Tokyo's subways was released from prison.
The Ho no Hana Sanpogyo foot cult, accused of bilking members out of millions of yen, paid top staff members salaries according to the number of new followers they recruited, police sources said Monday.
Some of the cult's top leadership now under arrest told police they wanted to acquire new followers because it was their major source of income, according to the sources.
The foot-cult founder, Hogen Fukunaga, 55, and 11 other senior cult members were arrested May 9 on suspicion of swindling enormous amounts of money from a number of followers as payment for cult-related seminars and the purchase of religious items. Fresh charges of fraud were issued against them Monday.
In addition, nine more members were arrested today on suspicion of cheating 14 people in a similar manner.
The cult's payment system came to light from confessions by some leaders now under arrest, the police sources said.
Cult leaders ``read'' the soles of prospective followers' feet and frightened them with stories of illness and bad luck that might strike them if they did not attend seminars or buy cult-related items.
At one point, about 250 staff members employed by the cult were categorized into as many as 18 different ranks. A 1995 internal document revealed there were 12 ranks. Monthly remuneration, ranging from 70,000 yen to 1 million yen, was paid according to a member's status within the cult, according to the sources.
Cult headquarters imposed quotas to recruit new followers at the organization's branches at 47 locations nationwide.
The leaders were to lure at least 70 percent of an allotted target figure of new cultists over a two-month period in order to earn a higher rank, the sources said.
Senior members told police they knew illnesses would never be cured at the cult's seminars and Fukunaga had no special power, the sources said.
Staff members claim they recruited new recruits without feeling guilty because they said they wanted to gain Fukunaga's favor.
TOKYO, June 20 (Kyodo) - Nine members of the Ho-no-Hana Sampogyo religious group were arrested Tuesday on suspicion of defrauding 14 people out of about 56.8 million yen in 1995 and 1996, police said.
The nine include Atsushi Yamaguchi, 36, a senior member of the cult, whose leader Hogen Fukunaga was served a fresh arrest warrant in the case Monday along with nine other members.
The arrests bring to 24 the number of Ho-no-Hana members arrested in a series of fraud cases, police said.
The arrests of Fukunaga and other members followed some four years of police investigations into the group, which is suspected of defrauding at least 30,000 people out of more than 87 billion yen.
Fukunaga and other senior members used to read people's feet and tell them they had serious illnesses which could be cured by means involving paying large sums of money, according to the police.
A group of lawyers representing people allegedly defrauded by Ho-no-Hana earlier this month said some 100 victims will sue the group in August at the earliest, seeking 500 million yen in damages.
Several leaders of Ho-no-Hana Sanpogyo have admitted to fraud allegations that cult members, including founder Hogen Fukunaga, swindled large amounts of money from participants during seminars hosted by the cult, police said Monday.
According to police, several cult leaders admitted the cult orchestrated the seminar fraud. One leader said he took part in the fraud because he wanted to raise his status within the cult by collecting money from seminar participants, while another said he wanted Fukunaga's recognition.
Police suspect cult members committed repeated fraudulent acts under Fukunaga's orders.
Fukunaga, however, has denied all such allegations.
When police last month arrested Hogen Fukunaga, the head of the Ho no Hana Sampogyo foot-reading cult, and began rummaging through the skeletons in his closet, they also found a ghost-a ghostwriter, that is.
Fukunaga is accused of bilking 87 billion yen from his followers. One of his most powerful weapons were the 109 books he authored. He has since admitted that all of them were ghostwritten. (The ghostwriter is also allegedly being questioned by police.)
The case has spotlighted one of the nation's least talked about professions, says the June 7 issue of SPA!. The magazine sets out to unearth the truth about hidden authors and finds Japan is a heaven for ghostwriters who pen everything from entertainment and sports celebrity autobiographies to new religion tracts and political speeches.
SPA! quotes an ``industry source'' who estimates 99.9 percent of celebrity books are ghostwritten and recalls the famous words of entertainer Iyo Matsumoto, who appeared on a TV program to promote her new book and admitted she hadn't read it yet herself.
SPA! says most of the writings of Diet members are also ghostwritten. Bureaucrats write most of their Diet pronouncements, their secretaries write most of their speeches and friendly journalists, who may receive anywhere from 100,000 yen to 1 million yen for their assistance, write books for them. SPA! notes some political correspondents have even moved on to become secretaries to Diet members.
The magazine claims a ghostwriter usually gets 3 percent to 4 percent in royalties, or 30 yen to 40 yen for a 1,000 yen book. This was not bad in the days when a typical print run was 30,000 copies, but nowadays seldom more than 10,000 to 15,000 copies are printed.
SPA! notes part of the thrill of ghostwriting is the hope of one day hitting upon a bestseller. Although the profession is full of tales of those who were not paid at all or received only 100,000 yen for a project that made someone else millions, there are also Cinderella tales of ghostwriters who hit it big earning windfalls as large as 200 million yen.
How can one tell if a book has been ghostwritten?
SPA! claims those who can make money by talking or lecturing probably are not going to bother writing a book and if the style of the language used does not sound like the way the celebrity talks, suspect a ghostwriter. Also look at the names of the people who have been thanked for their assistance in the acknowledgment section. An unfamiliar name could be that of a ghostwriter.
One ghostwriter told SPA! he puts a note of gratitude to himself in the books in recognition of all the sleepless nights he spent on them. (Often ghostwriters are called on to create a book in a matter of days.)
SPA! also talked to Kazuhiro Nakahara, perhaps Japan's most prolific ghostwriter. In his 20-year career, he has written more than 200 books that sold 20 million copies. SPA! estimates he must have made over 800 million yen by now. His luckiest break was a baseball series that sold 6.5 million copies and for a short while was providing 10 million yen a month in royalties.
His habit is to accept any job and write 100 pages a day or about three books a month. For example, he has written over 50 books about cars but has never bothered to get a license himself.
Still being constantly behind-the-scenes has its downside. Nakahara recounted the letdown he felt when he was introduced recently at a wedding reception as ``the famous ghostwriter.'' No matter how famous he was, none was going to know him.
He advised those who thought of starting out as a ghostwriter not to do it and noted ironically his own autobiography ``The Ghostwriter was a Keio Boy,'' published in 1996, did not even sell 10,000 copies.
Renowned worldwide, Tenko Hikita is Japan's most famous magician and illusionist. The June 11 issue of Sunday Mainichi claims to have the scoop on Hikita's April trip to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea), but the article, like Tenko's performances, is cloaked in mystery and illusion.
It has been widely rumored that Hikita had four audiences with Kim Jong Il during her stay and even dined with his family.
If the reports are true, Tenko is one of the few outsiders to have had access to Kim's family, about whom even North Korean watchers know very little. (Kim's wife is a second generation Korean born in Kyoto and repatriated in the early 1970s.)
When asked whether Tenko had met Kim, her manager replied vaguely: ``officially she has never met him.'' Tenko herself just laughed and fluffed off such questions.
It is also rumored Kim may have learned Japanese from his wife and that Tenko could have talked to him without an interpreter present.
The reporter notes that when asked if Kim can speak Japanese, Tenko's demeanor changed. She looked perplexed and answered hesitantly: ``He might be able to speak Japanese, I wonder...''
All that she would confirm was that she had heard he has seen all her videos and is very much interested in magic, illusion and movies.
Tenko did frankly talk about the stalkers who have hounded her since April 1999. She told Sunday Mainichi it was an indescribably frightening experience that began after she canceled a scheduled performance in North Korea in 1999 because of a leg injury.
She got anonymous phone calls day and night. The caller would say: `` Kim Jong Il is waiting for you'' and then hang up. No matter how many times she changed her phone number, still the calls came.
There was also other harassment. She described one incident during a trip to Yamanashi Prefecture. Her manager left the car for a moment to buy something when two men dressed as police pulled up, flashed IDs at her and asked her to get out of her car and get into their car to answer some questions. She refused and later found out the Yamanashi police had not sent anyone.
Former high-ranking members of the Ho-no-Hana Sampogyo religious cult, who are under arrest for fraud, have admitted to the charges against them, police said. It was the first time that suspects linked to the foot-reading cult have admitted to the group's fraudulent acts.
"We have done things that are inexcusable to the victims," an unnamed former senior cult member was quoted as telling police, referring to training sessions the cult held on the false pretext that they would heal the diseases of participants. The former members told police that they were aware the training sessions were a sham before they recommended that followers participate in the events held in Fuji, Shizuoka Prefecture.
Furthermore, the suspects acknowledged that the group's former leader, Hogen Fukunaga, 55, whose real first name is Teruyoshi, is void of supernatural powers. The cult had propagated that only Fukunaga was capable of employing the supernatural to cure diseases.
Fukunaga would put his hand over the eyes of followers during the sessions - a ritual that the group said would cure their diseases. The former executives, however, confessed to police that Fukunaga actually used to let other instructors perform the ritual halfway through.
The former high-ranking members were also in charge of selling expensive commodities to its followers in accordance with Fukunaga's "voice of God."
"My position forced me to recommend that followers join training sessions and buy commodities, even though I knew that recommending such things would constitute a fraud," one of the suspects told police on Tuesday.
A group of lawyers representing people allegedly defrauded by the Honohana Sampogyo foot-reading cult said that about 100 victims will sue the cult as early as August, seeking a total of 500 million yen in damages.
The victims will file fresh damages suits against the religious group with eight district courts -- in Tokyo, Akita, Yamanashi, Shizuoka, Aichi, Fukui, Osaka and Fukuoka prefectures, the lawyers said Friday.
About 1,100 people nationwide have already filed damages suits against the cult, seeking compensation totaling 5.4 billion yen. Victims claim the cult swindled them out of money in the name of fees.
Hogen Fukunaga, 55, the founder and former leader of Honohana, and several other senior members of the cult have been arrested and indicted on suspicion of fraud.
Police allege that Fukunaga pressured victims into paying "training fees" after examining the soles of their feet and falsely diagnosing illnesses in them and their families.
After Fukunaga and other cult members were arrested in May, an additional 280 people consulted with the lawyers saying they had been swindled by the cult, with damages reaching as high as 40 million yen per case, the group said.
The lawyers also asked the Cultural Affairs Agency on Friday to order the cult to be disbanded under the Religious Juridical Persons Law. The agency has the power to grant groups religious corporation status and issue orders to disband.
In the first ruling involving the cult April 28, the Fukuoka District Court ordered Honohana and Fukunaga to pay 27 people 227.2 million yen in damages for defrauding them out of money in the name of fees.
TOKYO - A group of lawyers representing people allegedly defrauded by the Ho-no-Hana Sampogyo foot-reading cult said Friday about 100 victims will sue the cult as early as August, seeking a total of 500 million yen in damages.
The victims will file fresh damages suits against the religious group with eight district courts -- in Tokyo, Akita, Yamanashi, Shizuoka, Aichi, Fukui, Osaka and Fukuoka prefectures, the lawyers said.
About 1,100 people nationwide have already filed damages suits against the Ho-no-Hana cult, seeking compensation totaling 5.4 billion yen. Victims claim the cult swindled them out of money in the name of fees.
Hogen Fukunaga, the 55-year-old founder and former leader of Ho-no-Hana, and several other senior members of the cult have been arrested and indicted on suspicion of fraud.
Police allege Fukunaga pressured victims into paying ''training fees'' after examining the soles of their feet and falsely diagnosing illnesses in them and their families.
After Fukunaga and other cult members were arrested in May, an additional 280 people consulted with the lawyers saying they had been swindled by the cult, with damage reaching as high as 40 million yen per case, the group said.
The lawyers also requested the Cultural Affairs Agency on Friday to order the cult to be disbanded under the Religious Juridical Persons Law. The agency has the power to grant groups religious corporation status and issue orders to disband.
In the first ruling involving the cult on April 28, the Fukuoka District Court ordered Ho-no-Hana and Fukunaga to pay 27 people 227.2 million yen in damages for defrauding them out of money in the name of fees.
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