MMA Sponsor and TDT Head Arrested on Fraud Charges -

According to both Japanese and international news outlets, the self-proclaimed “Boss” of TDT, Takuya Hashiyada was arrested, along with three others, on July 12th in relation to his connection with an investment group called Oz Project.

Here is video footage of them being arrested. Mr. Hashiyada can be seen wearing a TDT shirt.

The Backstory

For those who are unfamiliar, Oz Project is/was an investment group that alleged to specialize in cryptocurrencies. They were apparently able to attract a large number investors by making claims that investors would see returns of 2.5 times their initial investment within four months. In order to achieve this, it is reported that they claimed to be in possession of an AI automated cryptocurrency trading system. However, it is now being reported that they were never in possession of such a system.

It appears that once the initial investors did not start receiving the returns they had been told they would, reports started being made to the police in 2019. According to these victims, the Oz Project would hold seminars throughout Japan, where they would speak to existing investors about the need to increase the investments. It is also alleged that the victims were told to bring friends and family to the events so they could also invest.

Having no expertise in relation to Japanese law, from a laymen’s perspective it would appear that the main issue is related to the fact that those involved with the Oz Project claimed to be in possession of an AI based cryptocurrency trading system that would manage all of the investments within the investment group, despite never being in possession of such a system or anything similar. Essentially, they got people to invest by lying about how the investments would be managed.

All in all, it is alleged that the investment group is responsible for taking 6.5 billion yen (roughly 54.3 million USD) from around 15,000 people under false pretenses.

Who is Takuya Hashiyada?

Those who are familiar with the Japanese martial arts scene will likely be familiar with The Dice Team (“TDT”) , as they sponsor over 130 fighters, various promotions, and even sponsor the cutmen at Bellator events. Takuya Hashiyada is in charge of TDT and sometimes refers to himself as “Boss”.

His involvement with the Oz Project first got media attention about a year ago, when he was approached outside of his apartment by a TV crew asking about his involvement. He responded by saying “Should I tell you whether or not I’m involved with the Oz Project? No.”

The same TV program also interviewed one of the alleged victims who talked about his experiences with the Oz Project, where his wife and him were led to believe that they would see big returns on their investment and instead, only 5% of their investment was returned to them.

The details of his involvement are still emerging, but according to news outlets and rumors, each of the four is essentially claiming that they were just independent contractors, hired to do a specific job for the company.

It does look like Mr. Hashiyada has a history with cryptocurrency. He is listed as having developed Dice Wallet, an app that served as a bitcoin wallet. He is also listed as having been the CEO of Triple Dice Exchange, which served as a crypto wallet, exchange, and had its own digital coin called a King Dice Coin. Neither appear to be running any more.

Interestingly, Dice Wallet and Triple Dice Exchange were both associated with a coin called Ocean Coin, which was considered by some to be fraudulent. This is interesting because Ocean Coin was associated with Shoji Ishida, one of the other men arrested for his involvement with the Oz Project. The exact nature of the relationship between Mr. Ishida and Mr. Hashiyada is unknown at the moment.

Here is a tweet from 2018, with Mr. Hashiyada’s picture, calling him a scammer.

In addition, a google search of his name along with terms like cryptocurrency reveals some interesting results.

For example, on this site, a person alleges that they purchased an Apollo coin APO but somehow the coin ended up being considered an unrelated Token. After his own investigation, the person came to the belief that three people, one of whom was Takuya Hashiyada, colluded to create a fake APO, sell fake APO tokens, and make an ICO without permission.

Once he realized this, he attempted to contact them but never got a response. In his complaint, he lists three people that were involved with him purchasing the coin, one of whom was Takuya Hashiyada. The post goes on to claim the poster found a number of bad reviews about him online.

On another interesting note, some of the outlets are also attacking the character of Mr. Hashiyada, pointing out that it appears that he went to UFC 262 in Houston to support one of his sponsored fighters, Michael Chandler, and that upon his return to Japan, he did not appear to quarantine as posts were visible of him out drinking at clubs.

TDT

The TDT website has been taken down, but it seems that they generally described themselves as an apparel company, that sold things like T-shirts. They also had on their website that they were going to finance a new project in 2023, but the details were never released.

While it might be somewhat unclear what TDT did to earn money, it is clear that they sponsored a lot of fighters and various MMA events. They even put together an MMA event in the Ukraine earlier this year. The fact that this event was reported on by news outlets like Gong, goes to show how much influence TDT has on the fight scene in Japan. In addition to Japan, TDT sponsors events and fighters in the U.S. Just last weekend the cutmen at Bellator could be seen wearing TDT logos. Some of the more notable fighters they sponsor are Brandon Moreno, Joanna Jedrzejczyk, Jiri Prochazka, Eddie Alvarez, and Cris “Cyborg” Santos. It will be interesting to see if and how these sponsorships are effected.