Yuji Naka Arrested Once Again Over Alleged Insider Trading Allegations

Yuji Naka, co-creator of Sonic The Hedgehog, was recently arrested again. This time, the reason behind his arrest is the alleged insider trading of confidential info regarding Square Enix‘s mobile game, Final Fantasy VII: The First Soldier.

It was reported by Asahi that Yuji Naka was arrested alongside a former Square Enix employee, Taisuke Sazaki. It is also claimed that Yuji Naka was aware of Square Enix’s plans for the mobile game’s development with ATeam Entertainment before any official announcements were made.

Major Takeaways:

• Sonic co-creator Yuji Naka was arrested again over insider trading allegations.
• Yuji Naka is claimed to have acquired ATeam Entertainment shares before they made any public announcements regarding Square Enix’s mobile game, Final Fantasy VII: The First Soldier.
• Naka was also arrested over alleged insider trading in November.

Naka reportedly proceeded to purchase about 120,000 shares of ATeam Entertainment before the announcement of Final Fantasy VII: The First Soldier was made public.

Naka was also arrested for a similar reason in November. Back then, he was arrested, along with other suspects, for acquiring shares of Aiming, a Japanese developer company. Naka acquired the stock right before Aiming announced publicly that they were working on a new game called Dragon Quest Tact.

It is believed that Naka’s and other suspects’ goal was to sell the shares after the shares’ value had increased after the company made the game’s announcement public. However, due to Square Enix’s insider trading investigation, Naka was arrested again for following the same scheme.

The co-creator of Sonic also worked with Square Enix, but for only about two years between 2019 and 2021. During this duration, he worked on a platformer game called Balan Wonderworld.

The platformer game turned out to be a massive flop, for which Square Enix removed Yuji Naka from the director position. Naka then sued Square Enix for his removal from the company.

Despite all the recent controversy, Yuji Naka has not made any public statements about the allegations and the arrest.

In the comment section below, let us know your thoughts and opinions about Yuji Naka’s arrest.