Man in Japan ‘gambled Covid town funds mistakenly sent to him’

(Alamy/PA)

Money which was supposed to be Covid-19 assistance for low-income households in a small Japanese town was mistakenly wired to the bank account of a resident who refused to return it and spent most of it on online gambling, police have said.

Sho Taguchi, a 24-year-old jobless resident in the town of Abu in western Japan, was arrested on Wednesday, Yamaguchi prefectural police said.