Ten years ago, he was one of Japan’s richest and most flamboyant characters, a celebrated pop producer who once boasted that he had lost track of how much money he had made.
But Tetsuya Komuro’s fall from grace was complete Tuesday when he was arrested on suspicion of fraud, accused of swindling an investor out of US$5 million, by selling him rights to music he did not own.
Television footage showed investigators marching into Komuro’s luxury flat in Tokyo, while the 49-year-old was shown in Osaka, being driven from a hotel in tears. Police said Komuro had admitted the allegations.
Avex Group Holdings, the label behind Komuro’s most successful acts, said it “very much regretted” his arrest. According to media reports, the investor agreed to make a US$5.5 million down payment for the copyrights to 806 of Komuro’s songs, even though the producer knew the rights were not his to sell.
Komuro’s knack of spotting budding pop talent generated more than 170 million CD sales and made him one of Japan’s richest men in the mid-1990s. The peroxide blond Komuro was never given to moderation — he drove Ferraris and owned villas in Hawaii, Bali and Malibu, and once boasted to a tabloid newspaper: “As my bankbook only shows up to 10 digits, I’ve lost track of my money.”
At the height of his wealth he spent US$202,000 reserving the entire first-class cabin on a flight from Tokyo to Los Angeles.
While his acts sold millions of CDs in Japan, Hong Kong and Taiwan, they were practically unheard of elsewhere, though he did co-write Together Now, the theme tune for the France 1998 World Cup, with Jean-Michel Jarre.
Komuro, who launched his career in 1984 as a keyboard player with the group TM Network, is understood to have fallen into debt after a series of failed overseas business deals and an expensive divorce.
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