2022 is a turbulent year for Yuji Naka, historic creator of Sonic, who has found himself facing very serious allegations of insider trading.

If the failure of Balan Wonderland weren’t already enough, his latest project released on all platforms through Amazon, Naka also had to juggle between proceedings penalties.

Yuji Naka was arrested for the first time during the month of November for insider trading, charges that found no confirmation at the time, and for this he was released. p>

But a few weeks ago the developer was again involved in similar allegations , related to another product, along with another group of people who were arrested.

A few days before the end of 2022, unfortunately, the confirmation of the crime committed by the executive bodies arrives.

As ​​reported by VGC, in fact, Yuji Naka was formally indicted after arrest for alleged insider trading crimes.

He’s not the only one who will be brought to trial because Taisuke Sasaki, a former Square Enix employee previously involved in the affair, has also been indicted.

The Tokyo District Public Prosecutor’s Office determined that Naka actually had access to confidential information that Square planned to develop the spin-off The First Soldier of Final Fantasy VII, with mobile developer ATeam Entertainment.

With this information, Naka bought ¥144.7 million yen ($834,000) of shares in the company, knowing that their value would rapidly increase after the public announcement of the partnership. Sasaki, on the other hand, also reportedly bought ¥105 million yen ($787,318) of shares.

Yuji Naka and Taisuke Sasaki will be officially tried then, although at the moment it is not clear when the legal action will start.

An affair that will probably turn out to be much more complex than we expected because, previously, Square Enix employees had bought shares for another game in development.

Insider trading is, unfortunately, a very widespread crime in the industry because it recently also involved Activision Blizzard.