Takashi Miyagawa, 39, had a very busy schedule: 35 girlfriends, each with her own birthday… invented by him.
He sold showerheads and water purifiers door-to-door in Osaka, Japan, but his real side business was something else: he promised marriage, said things like “I will be with you for the rest of my life” and, along the way, made sure to receive money and clothing on birthdays he pulled out of thin air for each woman.
His real birthday was November 13, but that hardly mattered when he had gifts spread throughout the year.
The plan unraveled when some of his 35 girlfriends began comparing notes and noticed that the story kept repeating itself with suspicious exactness.
They organized themselves, gathered evidence, and went to the police in February 2021. He was arrested for fraud on April 20, although before that a television crew intercepted him on the street and he, true to form, denied everything and ran away.
