{"id":93534,"date":"2018-11-29T10:47:37","date_gmt":"2018-11-29T18:47:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/?p=93534"},"modified":"2018-11-29T10:47:37","modified_gmt":"2018-11-29T18:47:37","slug":"vegas-exec-edwin-fujinaga-guilty-of-running-1-5-billion-ponzi-scheme","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/vegas-exec-edwin-fujinaga-guilty-of-running-1-5-billion-ponzi-scheme\/","title":{"rendered":"Las Vegas Exec Who Subsidized Gambling with $1.5 Billion Ponzi Scheme Guilty of Fraud"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Las Vegas CEO who funded a luxury gambling lifestyle through a $1.5 billion Ponzi scheme<\/a> was found guilty of fraud and money laundering by a jury in Nevada on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\"Edwin
Edwin Fujinaga owed $1.5 billion to 8,000 mainly Japanese investors when he was arrested by the FBI for fraud and money laundering in 2015. (Image: SCMP)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Japanese-American Edwin Fujinaga, 72, bilked thousands of mainly Japanese citizens into investing into his company MRI International. Investors believed they were plowing their money into a firm that purchased unpaid medical accounts from health care providers at knock-down prices before collecting payments from insurance companies.<\/p>\n

They were hoodwinked by glossy brochures and marketing campaigns in leading business magazines that promised\u00a06 to 9.6 percent returns in Japanese yen and 6.5 to 10.3 percent in US dollars over two to five years.<\/p>\n

For Japanese savers frustrated by years of domestic baseline interest rates, it was a tempting offer. But it was all a sham. Despite its impressive Las Vegas headquarters and a sales office in Tokyo, MRI was nothing more than a classic Ponzi scheme.<\/p>\n

Scheme Implodes<\/strong><\/h2>\n

According to prosecutors, Fujinaga spent less than two percent of the funds he took from over 10,000 investors on buying medical accounts. And like all Ponzi schemes<\/a>, this one came crashing down.<\/p>\n

\n

In April 2012, Japan\u2019s Securities and Exchange Surveillance Commission cancelled MRI International\u2019s asset management license and began an investigation into the company. In July 2013, the Tokyo District Court seized assets in Japan worth approximately $3 million.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

In September 2013, the US Securities and Exchange Commission sued MRI accusing it of operating \u201can extensive and egregious Ponzi scheme.\u201d In 2015, the company was ordered to pay more than $580 million to resolve the civil case.<\/p>\n

8,000 Victims\u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Several months later, Fujinaga and two other MRI executives were arrested by the FBI. A federal indictment accused them of owing around 8,000 investors $1.5 billion (after 2,000 early investors had been paid) and of using the money to “subsidize their gambling” habits and for other personal expenses.<\/p>\n

\u201c[Fujinaga] used the balance of investors\u2019 funds for impermissible business and lavish personal expenses, such as a private jet; a mansion on a Las Vegas golf course; real estate in Beverly Hills, California wine country, and Hawaii; and luxury cars from Bentley, McLaren, and Bugatti,\u201d said the DOJ on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Fujinaga\u2019s trial before Chief Judge Gloria Navarro of the US District Court for the District of Nevada lasted five weeks. The jury took less than three hours to find the defendant guilty of eight counts of mail fraud, nine counts of wire fraud, and three counts of money laundering. He will be sentenced on March 9 next year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Las Vegas CEO who funded a luxury gambling lifestyle through a $1.5 billion Ponzi scheme was found guilty of fraud and money laundering by a jury in Nevada on Tuesday. Japanese-American Edwin Fujinaga, 72, bilked thousands of mainly Japanese citizens into investing into his company MRI International. Investors believed they were plowing their money […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":93540,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,18],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nVegas Exec Edwin Fujinaga Guilty of Running $1.5 Billion Ponzi Scheme<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"MRI International CEO Edwin Fujinaga convicted of fraud and money-laundering for operating a $1.5 billion Ponzi scheme that conned 8,000 mostly Japanese residents.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/vegas-exec-edwin-fujinaga-guilty-of-running-1-5-billion-ponzi-scheme\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Vegas Exec Edwin Fujinaga Guilty of Running $1.5 Billion Ponzi Scheme\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"MRI International CEO Edwin Fujinaga convicted of fraud and money-laundering for operating a $1.5 billion Ponzi scheme that conned 8,000 mostly Japanese residents.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/vegas-exec-edwin-fujinaga-guilty-of-running-1-5-billion-ponzi-scheme\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Casino.org\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Casino.OrgNews\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-11-29T18:47:37+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/edwin-e1543516598496.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"600\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"337\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Philip Conneller\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@casinoorgphilc\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@Casino_Org\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Philip Conneller\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/vegas-exec-edwin-fujinaga-guilty-of-running-1-5-billion-ponzi-scheme\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/vegas-exec-edwin-fujinaga-guilty-of-running-1-5-billion-ponzi-scheme\/\",\"name\":\"Vegas Exec Edwin Fujinaga Guilty of Running $1.5 Billion Ponzi Scheme\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/vegas-exec-edwin-fujinaga-guilty-of-running-1-5-billion-ponzi-scheme\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/vegas-exec-edwin-fujinaga-guilty-of-running-1-5-billion-ponzi-scheme\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/edwin-e1543516598496.png\",\"datePublished\":\"2018-11-29T18:47:37+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2018-11-29T18:47:37+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/58769b72851c8cf117fb58ca150ebf8b\"},\"description\":\"MRI International CEO Edwin Fujinaga convicted of fraud and money-laundering for operating a $1.5 billion Ponzi scheme that conned 8,000 mostly Japanese residents.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/vegas-exec-edwin-fujinaga-guilty-of-running-1-5-billion-ponzi-scheme\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/vegas-exec-edwin-fujinaga-guilty-of-running-1-5-billion-ponzi-scheme\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/vegas-exec-edwin-fujinaga-guilty-of-running-1-5-billion-ponzi-scheme\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/edwin-e1543516598496.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/edwin-e1543516598496.png\",\"width\":600,\"height\":337,\"caption\":\"Edwin Fujinaga owed $1.5 billion to 8,000 mainly Japanese investors when he was arrested by the FBI for fraud and money laundering in 2015. (Image: SCMP)\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/vegas-exec-edwin-fujinaga-guilty-of-running-1-5-billion-ponzi-scheme\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"News\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Commercial Gaming\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/commercial-gaming\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":3,\"name\":\"Live Casinos\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/commercial-gaming\/live-casinos\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":4,\"name\":\"Las Vegas Exec Who Subsidized Gambling with $1.5 Billion Ponzi Scheme Guilty of Fraud\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/\",\"name\":\"Casino.org\",\"description\":\"Latest Casino and Gaming News\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/58769b72851c8cf117fb58ca150ebf8b\",\"name\":\"Philip Conneller\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/cropped-5-1-96x96.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/cropped-5-1-96x96.png\",\"caption\":\"Philip Conneller\"},\"description\":\"In Philip Conneller\u2019s eight years with Casino.org, he has covered the gaming industry from Las Vegas to Macau and everything in between. He currently focuses his coverage on gaming law, white-collar crime, global money laundering, tribal gaming, politics, and regulation. Philip was the original features editor for poker\u2019s Bluff Magazine and editor for Bluff Europe, which he helped launch. His writing has also been featured in ESPN, Forbes, Time Out, The Sun, and The Daily Star, as well as iGaming Business, eGaming Review, and numerous other industry news and tech websites. His news stories for Casino.org\/news have been linked by The Washington Post, The Daily Mail, People Magazine, and Jimmy Fallon's Tonight Show, among many others. Philip once won $20,000 with 7-2 off-suit. He has been reprimanded for unwittingly playing Elton John\u2019s piano on two separate occasions on both sides of the Atlantic. He became a writer because he is a lousy pianist. Philip lives outside London with his wife and children, where he spends his time agonizing about Arsenal FC. Contact Philip at philip.conneller@casino.org.\",\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/muckrack.com\/philip-conneller\",\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/philip-conneller-1495a48\/?originalSubdomain=uk\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/casinoorgphilc\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/author\/phillip-conneller\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Vegas Exec Edwin Fujinaga Guilty of Running $1.5 Billion Ponzi Scheme","description":"MRI International CEO Edwin Fujinaga convicted of fraud and money-laundering for operating a $1.5 billion Ponzi scheme that conned 8,000 mostly Japanese residents.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/vegas-exec-edwin-fujinaga-guilty-of-running-1-5-billion-ponzi-scheme\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Vegas Exec Edwin Fujinaga Guilty of Running $1.5 Billion Ponzi Scheme","og_description":"MRI International CEO Edwin Fujinaga convicted of fraud and money-laundering for operating a $1.5 billion Ponzi scheme that conned 8,000 mostly Japanese residents.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/vegas-exec-edwin-fujinaga-guilty-of-running-1-5-billion-ponzi-scheme\/","og_site_name":"Casino.org","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Casino.OrgNews","article_published_time":"2018-11-29T18:47:37+00:00","og_image":[{"width":600,"height":337,"url":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/edwin-e1543516598496.png","type":"image\/png"}],"author":"Philip Conneller","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@casinoorgphilc","twitter_site":"@Casino_Org","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Philip Conneller","Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/vegas-exec-edwin-fujinaga-guilty-of-running-1-5-billion-ponzi-scheme\/","url":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/vegas-exec-edwin-fujinaga-guilty-of-running-1-5-billion-ponzi-scheme\/","name":"Vegas Exec Edwin Fujinaga Guilty of Running $1.5 Billion Ponzi Scheme","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/vegas-exec-edwin-fujinaga-guilty-of-running-1-5-billion-ponzi-scheme\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/vegas-exec-edwin-fujinaga-guilty-of-running-1-5-billion-ponzi-scheme\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/edwin-e1543516598496.png","datePublished":"2018-11-29T18:47:37+00:00","dateModified":"2018-11-29T18:47:37+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/58769b72851c8cf117fb58ca150ebf8b"},"description":"MRI International CEO Edwin Fujinaga convicted of fraud and money-laundering for operating a $1.5 billion Ponzi scheme that conned 8,000 mostly Japanese residents.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/vegas-exec-edwin-fujinaga-guilty-of-running-1-5-billion-ponzi-scheme\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/vegas-exec-edwin-fujinaga-guilty-of-running-1-5-billion-ponzi-scheme\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/vegas-exec-edwin-fujinaga-guilty-of-running-1-5-billion-ponzi-scheme\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/edwin-e1543516598496.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/edwin-e1543516598496.png","width":600,"height":337,"caption":"Edwin Fujinaga owed $1.5 billion to 8,000 mainly Japanese investors when he was arrested by the FBI for fraud and money laundering in 2015. (Image: SCMP)"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/vegas-exec-edwin-fujinaga-guilty-of-running-1-5-billion-ponzi-scheme\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"News","item":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Commercial Gaming","item":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/commercial-gaming\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Live Casinos","item":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/commercial-gaming\/live-casinos\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":4,"name":"Las Vegas Exec Who Subsidized Gambling with $1.5 Billion Ponzi Scheme Guilty of Fraud"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/","name":"Casino.org","description":"Latest Casino and Gaming News","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/58769b72851c8cf117fb58ca150ebf8b","name":"Philip Conneller","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/cropped-5-1-96x96.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/cropped-5-1-96x96.png","caption":"Philip Conneller"},"description":"In Philip Conneller\u2019s eight years with Casino.org, he has covered the gaming industry from Las Vegas to Macau and everything in between. He currently focuses his coverage on gaming law, white-collar crime, global money laundering, tribal gaming, politics, and regulation. Philip was the original features editor for poker\u2019s Bluff Magazine and editor for Bluff Europe, which he helped launch. His writing has also been featured in ESPN, Forbes, Time Out, The Sun, and The Daily Star, as well as iGaming Business, eGaming Review, and numerous other industry news and tech websites. His news stories for Casino.org\/news have been linked by The Washington Post, The Daily Mail, People Magazine, and Jimmy Fallon's Tonight Show, among many others. Philip once won $20,000 with 7-2 off-suit. He has been reprimanded for unwittingly playing Elton John\u2019s piano on two separate occasions on both sides of the Atlantic. He became a writer because he is a lousy pianist. Philip lives outside London with his wife and children, where he spends his time agonizing about Arsenal FC. Contact Philip at philip.conneller@casino.org.","sameAs":["https:\/\/muckrack.com\/philip-conneller","https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/philip-conneller-1495a48\/?originalSubdomain=uk","https:\/\/x.com\/casinoorgphilc"],"url":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/author\/phillip-conneller\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93534"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93534"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93534\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/93540"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}