Once one of Japan’s largest trading companies Sumitomo Corporationa major Japanese trading company founded in 1919 and active in various fields such as metal products, transportation systems, infrastructure, media and consumer goods.

A copper trader who rose to fame in the 1980s Yasuo HamanakaIn 1986, his career took off and he became head of copper trading, one of Sumitomo’s main business areas.

But Hamanaka was not only interested in climbing the career ladder!

After joining the Sumitomo Corporation, Yasuo Hamanaka decided to unethically convert his knowledge into power and become a leader. through a shell company begins to manipulate the copper market.

Hamanaka started taking big risks in the copper market in the early 1990s to manipulate the market and control prices He tries to increase Sumitomo’s income by falsifying documents and making false statements.

Through the deceptive network he set up purchase in bulk, He executed transactions on the futures markets in various countries using them as collateral.

Under Hamanaka’s leadership, his mastery of analyzing the market and exploiting fluctuations to make huge profits led to the growth of Sumitomo’s copper business and made the company an influential player in the global copper market. Hamanaka was also busy lining his pockets.

This manipulation lasted exactly 10 years!

In 1993, Hamanaka’s large-scale purchases unusually raised the price of copper, creating other problems It attracted the attention of experienced stock market investors and for this reason, these investors took a short position, thinking that the price increase was temporary.

In order to keep prices from falling, Hamanaka increased his purchases and raised the amount of copper in his possession so much that 5% of the entire copper market He could hold it in his hand.

Of course, during this process, Hamanaka made money through commissions and profits from his investments. earn billions of dollars He had succeeded.

However in 1996 everything would change…

Because the rise in copper prices encouraged copper producers to produce.

With the rise in the price of copper, producers prefer not to produce more because it is not very profitable under normal circumstances, become attractive had arrived.

Therefore increasing copper production drop in copper price made it happen.

But Hamanaka made a mistake here and did not reduce the amount he had when prices fell. increased.

This situation indicates that there is an unusual situation in the markets. It attracted attention and an investigation was opened.

As a result of the investigation it came to light that Hamanaka had been manipulating prices for ten years It caused a massive collapse in the copper market.

Hamanaka was dismissed and to a prison sentence of 7 years had been hit. It is known that when his seven-year prison sentence ended, the first sentence he said to journalists was how surprised he was at the rise in copper prices…

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