An all-too-familiar tale of the GameStop saga took place in Japan back in 2018. Three years later, the regulators arrested a former money manager, Toru Yamada, and another person for their alleged role in market manipulation.

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A Bloomberg report stated that Yamada, a day trader in Osaka, Japan, who went by the nickname, Tonpin, was betting on Nichidai Corporation, a small company that makes precision dies and molding products for automobiles, in 2018.

He touted his position on his official Twitter handle, where he has over 55,000 followers. This inspired his followers to invest in the shares of the company. The stock surged six-fold in the first three months of 2018 before crashing.

However, he wasn’t arrested for taking the stock up on Twitter, but on suspicion of trying to keep the price down. In such a scenario, the margin-trading restrictions would have been removed, which could have caused the shares prices to soar.

The incident shows how the market regulators scrutinise unusual trading patterns and arrive at conclusions often years later. This all-too-familiar tale is reminiscent of GameStop — a brick-and-mortar retailer based in Texas, specialising in buying, selling, and trading of games and game devices — and how its stock price rose, thanks to a Redditor forum.

The company’s stocks have been nosediving since 2016. Someone on Reddit saw a Hedge Fund was heavily ‘short-selling’ the stock. So, a group of amateur day traders at the r/wallstreetbets thread — a longstanding subreddit channel where lakhs of Reddit users discuss highly speculative trading ideas and strategies — decided to get involved. They convinced other people on the thread to buy GameStop stocks. This skyrocketed the share prices.

The Bloomberg report states that Yamada has yet to be charged. It’s not sure if he will be charged. The report also states that it wasn’t clear if the duo had admitted or denied the charges. However, this incident shows the risks associated with becoming a high-profile investor on social media.

According to a regulatory filing, Yamada first disclosed the purchase of Nichidai shares on December 8, 2017. Gradually, he raised his stake. Next year on February 1, he tweeted about it, by when shares price had tripled. In March 2018, Yamada and another man placed a large number of sell orders below the market price to keep the share price below a certain level. As restrictions on new margin trades on the stock were lifted, prices rose by 18 percent. On March 10, Yamada tweeted about this process with screenshots of Nichidai trades.

However, many traders wondered what Yamada had done wrong. According to Bloomberg Akira Katayama, a day trader, wrote after Yamada’s arrest: “It’s amazing that selling to release the margin restrictions is treated as market manipulation.”

Though Yamada’s fate is yet unknown, under Japanese law, he can be detained for 23 days before the authorities press any charges.