Three people, including Sonic designer Yuji Nakai, were arrested by the Japanese police on suspicion of insider trading.

Thanks to CTOnews.com netizens for handwriting and OC_Formula clues delivery! CTOnews.com, November 19, Japanese police today arrested three people, including Sonic designer Yuji Nakai, accusing them of insider trading. Of the three people arrested, two were former employees of game developer Square Enix, and one of them was Yuji Nakai, the former head of Sonic Team's studio.

In September 2020, Square Enix launched a DQ mobile game called "Warriors fight Dragons" (Dragon Quest Tact). A small, relatively unknown studio called Aiming is developing the project. Before the announcement, some Square Enix employees heard that the developer was developing new works for the beloved DQ series of games and had bought a large number of shares in the company.

Tokyo police arrested Taisuke Sazaki on Thursday night on charges of insider trading, according to Japanese news media FN. He has been involved in franchise projects such as final Fantasy and Heart of the Kingdom, buying 2720 million yen ($194000) worth of Aiming shares between December 2019 and February 2020. Authorities allege that the purchase took place after Sazaki learned the details of the "Warriors fight Dragons" project.

CTOnews.com learned that the third person arrested by the Tokyo police was Yuji Nakai. He was one of the creators of the original "Sonic the Hedgehog" game and the director of Sonic Team, the studio that later ran the series. He has also worked on popular games such as Dream Star I&II, Nights into Dreams and Ghouls'n Ghosts on his resume.

Police accused Yuji Nakai of knowing before the Aiming deal was made public and buying 10000 shares worth 2.8m yen ($20000) in the company. The police accused him of violating Japan's Financial Instruments and Trading Law.