A Japanese man accidentally given more than £250,000 from a Covid relief fund gambled it away in just two weeks and has now disappeared.
More than 450 low income households were supposed to receive around £600 each from their government to help ease financial strain.
Instead, the entire fund of 46.3million Yen - £287,000- was paid into the account of an unnamed 24-year-old man.
Every day for around two weeks he withdrew cash which local media claimed he gambled away, the Asahi Shumbun reported.
He was quoted as saying: “I've already moved the money. It can't be returned.
"It cannot be undone any more. I will not run. I will pay for my crime.
“I don't currently have the money and I don't have anything with property value at hand. It's actually difficult to return it."
The man’s lawyer said his client was cooperating but officers are now not able to track him down.
He added: “After checking the complaint, we will consider the matter so that it can be resolved.”
Norihiko Hanada, mayor of ABU, Yamaguchi Prefecture, said it would be “unforgivable” if the man gambled all the money away.
Earlier this year the Tories were slammed for losing billions of taxpayers' money in its Covid response - and leaving future generations to pay for it.
Dame Meg Hillier, chairwoman of the Commons Public Accounts Committee has said the number of mistakes and opportunities for fraudsters to access Covid support schemes was “unacceptable”.
Around £15billion of taxpayers money has been lost from schemes and loans launched by the HMRC, the Department for Work and Pensions and the Business Department.
But the figure is expected to be much higher as the HM Treasury does not yet know how much money has been lost to fraud and error across the government’s response to COVID-19 .
The furlough scheme alone is estimated to lose £5.3billion to fraud and error - 8.7% of the funding distributed.
The Public Accounts Committee is concerned that HM Treasury does not currently plan to distinguish the cost of COVID-19 from departments’ business-as-usual spending in future.
Committee chairwoman Dame Meg Hillier said: "Lack of preparedness and planning, combined with weaknesses in existing systems across Government, have led to an unacceptable level of mistakes, waste, loss and openings for fraudsters which will all end up robbing current and future taxpayers of billions of pounds.
“It is essential that for as long as we will be paying the costs of Covid19, which is at least the next 20 years just in some of the loan repayment terms, the Treasury and all of Government continue to account specifically for what it has spent in response to the pandemic.
"Government must be held accountable in this way to all the future taxpayers who will be paying for this response.
"Crucially this must ensure lessons are learned for when the next big crisis hits - be it climate, health or financial.”
