Tokyo: Japanese investigators searched offices of House of Representatives lawmaker Yoshitaka Ikeda on Wednesday over a high-profile political funds scandal involving the ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s largest faction.

Ikeda, 57, became the first lawmaker to be subject to a search over the scandal in which the faction allegedly created slush funds from fundraising party revenues.

He is suspected of receiving over 40 million yen from the faction in kickbacks from such party revenues and failing to record them in his political funds reports.

The special investigation squad of the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office started the search at Ikeda’s office in an office building of Lower House lawmakers in Tokyo around 10:45 a.m., when around 10 officials entered the location. His office in Nagoya, central Japan, and his home in a residential building for Lower House lawmakers in Tokyo were also raided.

On Dec. 19, the investigation team raided the office of the faction, once led by the late former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, on suspicion of violating the political funds control law.

The team is questioning five senior members of the faction, including former Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno, as well as Ikeda and other member lawmakers who have received a large amount of kickbacks, on a voluntary basis.

The faction set sales quotas for fundraising party tickets for member lawmakers, and revenues in excess of the quotas were kicked back to the members who sold the tickets, people familiar with the group said. It is suspected that the money was turned into slush funds as it was allegedly not reported in political funds statements of the faction or the recipient members, according to the people.

Many lawmakers of the faction are believed to have received apparent slush funds. The total amount is estimated at some 500 million yen over the five years through 2022, a period in which the statute of limitations has not run out.

Among faction members, Yasutada Ono, a lawmaker of the House of Councillors, the upper chamber of parliament, and Yaichi Tanigawa, a lawmaker of the Lower House, are believed to have received kickbacks totaling some 50 million yen and over 40 million yen, respectively, from the faction.

At least 10 members of the faction, including Matsuno, Tsuyoshi Takagi, former LDP parliamentary affairs chief, and Hiroshige Seko, former secretary-general of the LDP in the Upper House, are believed to have received over 10 million yen each.

On Dec. 8, Ikeda corrected his political funds reports for 2020-2022. His office explained that it had concluded that some funds should have been reported as donations although they had been viewed as political activity expenses and not reported.

Ikeda, a native of Aichi Prefecture, central Japan, has been elected to parliament four times. He served as state minister of education, culture, sports, science and technology between October 2021 and August 2022.

JIJI Press