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Sonic Co-Creator Yuji Naka Arrested for Insider Trading

Sonic Co-Creator Yuji Naka Arrested for Insider Trading - News

by William D'Angelo , posted on 17 November 2022 / 3,837 Views

Yuji Naka, the lead programmer on the original Sonic the Hedgehog and most recently the director for Balan Wonderland, has been arrested by the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office for insider trading under the Financial Instruments and Exchange Act.

Naka learned important information about the mobile title Dragon Quest Tact while working at Square Enix. He was said to have purchased 10,000 for about 2.8 million yen ($20,000) before information became publicly available. 

A former employee of Square Enix Taisuke Sasaki and acquaintance Fumiaki Suzuki were also arrested on suspicion of insider trading. It is believed the two purchased around 162,000 shares worth about 47.2 million yen ($337,000).

Sonic Co-Creator Yuji Naka Arrested for Insider Trading

Naka is a video game programmer, designer and producer. He has worked on the original Sonic the Hedgehog series, Nights into Dreams, Sonic Adventure, the Phantasy Star series, and most recently 2021's Balan Wonderworld.

A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.


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21 Comments
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VAMatt (on 18 November 2022)

If you're going to make some insider trades, do it with a lot more than $20,000.

  • +8
KLAMarine VAMatt (on 18 November 2022)

Any other advice?

  • -3
VAMatt KLAMarine (on 18 November 2022)

Get your brother-in-law's cousin's friend to make the trades with your information and money, so it's a lot harder to track back to you.

  • +11
KLAMarine VAMatt (on 18 November 2022)

lol

  • +2
Jumpin VAMatt (on 19 November 2022)

Smaller trades are harder to detect, and easier to defend in court.

  • 0
VAMatt Jumpin (on 19 November 2022)

Maybe true. Then get several of your brother-in-law's cousin's friends to place trades for you.

  • +3
Jumpin VAMatt (on 22 November 2022)

To what end? Risk 20 years in prison so someone else can get rich? And given it’s Japan, the chances of getting turned in just for asking are higher than most other countries in the world.

  • 0
VAMatt Jumpin (on 23 November 2022)

No, so you can get rich. Maybe not rich, but so you can make some bucks.

It is believed that only a very tiny percentage of inside a trades are caught. My understanding is it is very hard to get good info on that though, for obvious reasons.

  • 0
Crown (on 18 November 2022)

Even without that, he had to end up in jail for balan wonderworld XD (jk)

  • +8
KLAMarine (on 18 November 2022)

Sonic: "that's no good!"

  • +6
Darwinianevolution (on 18 November 2022)

Well, that's something I didn't expect to read today.

  • +3
Hiku (on 19 November 2022)

Prison Wonderworld.

  • +1
Wman1996 (on 21 November 2022)

I guess he isn't gonna go fast anymore.

  • 0
JWeinCom (on 18 November 2022)

Really shouldn't have been anywhere near video game stock.

  • 0
CaptainExplosion (on 18 November 2022)

plays Sonic 1 game over music

  • 0
mjk45 CaptainExplosion (on 18 November 2022)

It seems to be a case of the wrong Yuji Naka making the trade rather than the Balan Naka who would have taken two years to make the trade thus being safe from accusations of insider he reverted back to Sonic Naka and this is the result.

  • 0
DonFerrari (on 18 November 2022)

Seems like he made a bad bet.

  • 0
SanAndreasX DonFerrari (on 18 November 2022)

His bad bet was that he wouldn't get caught.

  • 0
DonFerrari SanAndreasX (on 18 November 2022)

Second one was doing it for such little money.

  • 0
mjk45 DonFerrari (on 18 November 2022)

Well beggars can't be choosers and looking at Balan Wonderworld its obvious that
the money came from them stripping out 90% of that the games budget since $20.000 fits with that scenario.

  • +1
KratosLives (on 17 November 2022)

LOL

  • 0