Would you like to hear a really messed up story? This one involves 4000 people being cheated out of 800 million dollars – and two murderers breaking into an apartment in front of 2 security guards and at least 40 journalists!
In 1981 a young man from Gifu prefecture called Kazuo Nagano founded the Osaka Toyota Trading Company and renamed it Toyota Trading Company (TTC) – despite the fact that there was already a Toyota Trading Company, part of the famous conglomerate that produces cars, amongst other things. (Nagano’s first job was at Nippondenso, a company that supplies automotive parts to Toyota…) The TTC targeted widowed elderly people by phone, claiming to sell (and of course store) gold – if that first step was successful a representative would visit the potential customer’s house, trying to gain their trust and make them invest – of course the famous Toyota brand name was chosen on purpose to imply a connection that wasn’t there. In 1985 the TTC became part of an investigation lead by the National Consumer Affairs Center after about 4000 people claimed they invested 800 million dollars without any results. In April of that year the head of the Kajima Trading Company, which sold membership for non-existing Toyota Gold Clubs, was arrested. On June 18th 1985 the arrest of Kazuo Nagano became very likely, so a few dozen reporters besieged Nagano’s apartment in Osaka, which was protected by two private security guards. All of a sudden two men showed up and demanded entrance, claiming that “We’ve been asked to kill him.” – then they smashed a window next to the door, climbed inside and killed Nagano with a bayonet. Nobody even tried to stop them, but the present cameramen made sure to film the whole scene, which can be found on Youtube. (The actual murder is not visible as it took place inside – the two killers were sentenced to eight / ten years in jail.)
Over the years, the Toyota Trading Company claimed to be involved in many businesses – newspapers, airlines, diamonds… and construction. None of these businesses ever made any money, in fact they lost most of it with failed investments. Two of those failed investments still stand tall in the Japanese countryside – a pretty much locked up 5-storey brick hotel in Hyogo and a gigantic 13-storey onsen hotel with about 250 rooms in Kyoto. Since the unfinished hotel in Kyoto is much more interesting visually, I bundled this quite unusual and very tragic background story with the smaller one in Hyogo…
The Hyogo Construction Ruin actually looks brand-new from the outside and nobody would know that it is abandoned, if it weren’t for the out of control vegetation surrounding the building and the massive amount of corrugated iron blocking windows and doors. The last time I saw this location on the internet (years ago!) it must have been just in the process of being abandoned as the vegetation was a lot lower and the ground floor hadn’t been prepared for the zombie apocalypse yet. Back then I was fascinated by it, with the dark clinker brick façade outside and a brand-new clinker brick wall inside – in a huge glass front room most likely to be the resort hotel’s dining hall.
Upon my visit the building turned out to be quite a disappointment and one of the most unfun explorations of the year. Despite massive glass elements in the dining room and the lobby, most of the ground floor was incredibly spooky due to the mostly boarded-up windows and some pitchblack areas – finding some photo albums and left-behind blueprints didn’t help much to distract from the fact that this was a very, very uncomfortable place. And it got worse. The staircases leading down had huge yellow tubes disappearing in the basement, most likely industrial size dehydrators, the staircases leading up were both completely dark – and so was the second floor; darker’n a black steer’s tookus on a moonless prairie night. Windows boarded up, most rooms boarded up. Nothing was finished, the few installed bathroom doors still in their plastic wrapping. There was little to see and even less to take interesting pictures of, maybe except for the fact that in some rooms the floor / ceiling was missing, as if somebody took a sledgehammer and thought a demolition workout would be a good idea. Other than that… nothing. More or less dark hallways, more or less barricaded rooms, more or less finished interior. And though there was not much in the building to rot, the smell inside wasn’t exactly pleasing either. Just a really, really creepy place I was more than happy to leave after about spending a total of maybe an hour there…
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What a hauntingly peculiar place. The back story is worthy of a book or full length documentary. Thanks for sharing.
Maybe somebody can pick up the story again… It obviously stretches till our time, with two gigantic construction ruins still standing and somebody still partly feeling responsible for them.
Despite the disappointment, some good shots.
Thanks, yeah, the photo set isn’t too shabby, but I enjoyed barely any second of the hour I spent there. That building had a really bad vibe! And it’s not because of the background story – the building in Kyoto was just amazing!
great like usally,that back story is pretty insteresting…i see that resort was in quite a nice location,next to the river,and such,i like view’s like that 😀
It would have been a lovely place to stay… and they got pretty far. Too bad they stopped and nobody finished the building.
I’ve never understood how someone can go about deliberately swindling on such a massive scale!?
Me neither, but there are so many things I don’t understand – like vandalism or cigarettes…
I really enjoyed this story and photo set, great work F.
Maybe I’m weird, but the lack of finishing actually makes it more intriguing to me. Yes it doesn’t have the culture or style of a 100 year-old structure, but it’s like a business-world version, sanitized of personality yet steeping in fraudulent intent. Still a fascinating tale, I think. Thanks for sharing! 🙂
Thanks a lot! The atmosphere there was just… wrong. I have no idea why, but I felt really uncomfortable there. But the photos and the video tour turned out well, the background story was as weird as it was interesting, so overall the Hyogo Contruction Ruin was a great success!