Con heir

In September a Tokyo district court decided to send two arch-swindlers to prison for 26 months. Yasuyuki Kitano, a former caretaker, masterminded Japan’s most spectacular scam in decades by posing as a member of the Arisugawa imperial family in 2003. Mr Kitano claimed to be Prince Satohito Arisugawa, while his accomplice, Harumi Sakamoto, pretended to be his new bride, and the pair invited Tokyo's social elite to their wedding reception. Though no one had heard of the prince, the thrill of attending a royal event was enough to lure 350 guests. As Mr Kitano had planned, each guest gave the traditional Japanese wedding offering—an envelope stuffed with banknotes.

In what the Tokyo judge, Takaki Oshima, described as a “malicious criminal act”, the pair collected about $100,000 in wedding gifts. Journalists revealed their crime some weeks after the event, to the embarrassment of the well-heeled guest list. A simple internet search of the Arisugawa family tree would have shown that Prince Satohito could not possibly have been genuine.