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Tetsuya Komuro in prison : earthquake in the Jpop world

Posted by Shito on 2008-11-04 09:45 - Translation : janiine

Since last night, news about the subject keep coming up in the Japanese press, with a chain of consequences : producer Tetsuya Komuro, who became very wealthy in the 90s with his band globe but also because he initiated the success of many stars (Namie Amuro, Tomomi Kahala...), has been remanded in custody on a serious charge of fraud. Mr Komuro risks no less than 10 years of imprisonment..

The case began on August 2006, when Tetsuya Komuro met an investor and offered to sell him the royalties of his 806 songs for 1 billion yens. His second wife, Asami Yoshida, had demanded for no less than 700 million yens because of a judicial decision due to their divorce in 2001. That is why Mr Komuro asked and got a 500 million yen advance from the investor. But the truth is, the royalties of the 806 singles written and composed by TK were actually owned by avex entertainment, since the artist was working as a hired producer, which is very common in Japan.

This case was taken to civil law and Tetsuya Komuro was finally sentenced to pay 600 million yens back to the investor. Nevertheless, the latter has just decided to take the matter to a criminal court, considering that TK is unable to settle his dept. Mr Komuro might go to prison for up to 10 years for fraud. The press followed his whole arrest at his building of Roppongi Hills, Tôkyô, and his put on remand yesterday in Ôsaka, with two of his partners, in order to be questionedby the juge in charge of the case.

TK, ruined by his megalomania when he tried to extend his empire to the Asian market at the end of the 90s, has failed to curb his jet setter spendings and ended up penniless after his second divorce. Singer KEIKO, a member of the band globe and TK's wife since 2002, has been completely cleared in this case and is now looking for funds in order to pull him through this rough time. The artist has notably hurried her parents to pay off as quick as possible the money that TK lent them to open the shop they run today. By the way, her solo career as KCO was recently launched to garanty a personal income in case things would go wrong.

After Tetsuya Komuro's put in custody last night, avex announced the cancellation of all the CD releases planned by globe, including the two singles that were already available for preorder, Get Wild and Self Control. These financial problems brought to light may also explain why TK has chosen to take up songs he composed himself to revive globe's career... In addition to that, Sony has decided to cancel the next releases of TM NETWORK. Tetsuya Komuro was let down by avex, even though they owe him a big part of their expansion. Now, he can forget about his producer career, and the end of globe, forecast many times, has never been so near.