SHIZUOKA, Japan: A Shizuoka prefectural assembly member said Monday he has sold sets of face masks for a total of 8.88 million yen on an internet auction site, amid nationwide shortages due to the new coronavirus outbreak.

Hiroyuki Morota, 53, apologized for the profiteering during a press conference at the prefectural office. "The decision was not appropriate," he said.

Morota runs a foreign goods distribution company. The masks sold on the auction site were acquired by the company around 10 years ago and kept in its inventories.

The independent assembly member said he had sold sets of 2,000 masks on 89 occasions between Feb. 4 and Friday.

He said that the masks were not resale items and that he had not made excessively high profits from the sales. The highest bid on the auction site was 172,368 yen per set, or roughly 86 yen per mask.

"I did not set a buyout price (set by sellers), leaving it to the market price," Morota said.

He said he will donate all proceeds from the sales to Shizuoka Prefecture, central Japan, and that he will remain in office. He added that he will resign as the representative director of the distribution firm.

JIJI Press