Takashi Miyagawa Japanese serial dater with 35 girlfriends arrested for fraud over birthday gifts after lying to women and getting them to buy him birthday gifts.
All I want from you ‘my love’ is a nice birthday present. A Japanese man has been arrested for allegedly scamming over 35 different women with whom he pretended he was in a serious relationship.
Takashi Miyagawa, a 39-year-old part-time worker with no fixed address in Kansai, told each of his ‘girlfriends’ that his birthday fell on a different date so he could receive gifts, Newsflash reported.
All the while, each woman was completely oblivious to each other’s existence.
In the most recent scam, the serial dater told one 47-year-old lover that his birthday was on Feb. 22 — despite it actually falling on Nov. 13. Another victim said he convinced her his birthday was in July, while a third woman was fooled into thinking it occurred in April.
Japanese broadcaster MBS released photographs showing Miyagawa with many different women, including one that depicts a table with two cakes and a note saying ‘Happy Birthday.’
But what if this was a woman doing the ‘swindling’?
The serial dater’s brazen plan netted him JPY 100,000 (or $929.44) worth of presents, clothes and cash.
Miyagawa had reportedly met the single women while selling them hydrogen shower heads and other products for an unnamed company, and began each relationship under the assumption that marriage was in the cards.
He managed to con at least 35 women before the man’s scorned victims banded together and reported him to the police in February, according to local media outlets.
The man’s arrest led to some commentators calling foul, pointing out that women often pray on men’s insatiable desire for passion, love and sex to get free meals, favors, and cash – whether through arranged deals or also pretending to have an interest in male suitors.
According to a 2019 report by the Federal Trade Commission, romance scams targeting ‘love sick’ targeting are the most costly forms of online fraud, skyrocketing from $33 million swindled in 2015 to $143 million lost in 2018.
