Tokyo

Japanese prosecutors on Wednesday arrested ruling party lawmaker Tsukasa Akimoto for allegedly taking 3.7 million yen in bribes, including cash, from a Chinese company that was planning to open a casino-featuring integrated resort in Japan.

The Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office’s special investigation team suspects that the 48-year-old member of the House of Representatives, the lower chamber of the Diet, Japan’s parliament, received the bribes in return for favors he did for the Shenzhen-based firm, 500.com, whose line of business includes online lottery operations. Akimoto, a Liberal Democratic Party member elected from a Tokyo constituency, is a former state minister in charge of IRs at the Cabinet Office.

He was the first Japanese lawmaker arrested by the special squad since January 2010, when then Lower House member Tomohiro Ishikawa was nabbed for allegedly violating the political funds control law over a scandal related to Rikuzankai, a fund management body for political bigwig Ichiro Ozawa, former leader of the now-defunct Democratic Party of Japan.

Akimoto is suspected of receiving 3 million yen in cash from the 500.com side in late September 2017, when he was state minister at both the Cabinet Office and the Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Ministry, although he knew that the company offered the money to get preferential treatment from him for its IR plan.

In mid-February 2018, Akimoto and his family was invited to a tour to the northernmost Japan prefecture of Hokkaido by the 500.com side, with the company covering about 700,000 yen in expenses for the trip, including air tickets and accommodations, according to the charges.

The prosecutors also arrested a 37-year-old former executive of 500.com’s subsidiary in Tokyo and two advisers at the Chinese firm--Masahiko Konno, 48, and Katsunori Nakasato, 47--for allegedly bribing Akimoto.

The special investigation squad has not disclosed whether the four suspects admitted to the charges.

Akimoto submitted to the LDP a letter of resignation from the party, apparently to take the blame for his arrest, according to a high-ranking party member. His resignation was accepted, the official said.

The Shenzhen-based company is alleged to have brought millions of yen in cash into Japan without informing customs authorities in violation of the foreign exchange law. The firm set up the Tokyo unit in July 2017 as its IR business base in Japan.

In August the same year, 500.com’s chief executive officer and Akimoto delivered speeches at an IR-related symposium in Naha, the capital of the southernmost Japan prefecture of Okinawa, one of the nation’s tourist hubs.

The firm showed an interest in investing in a tourism company in Sapporo, the capital of Hokkaido, which was planning to embark on an IR business in the village of Rusutsu in the prefecture, also a major tourist destination. Akimoto allegedly met with senior officials of the Rusutsu municipal government and executives of the Sapporo company.

The special investigation team suspects that Akimoto gave favorable treatment to the Chinese company’s side, including through the meeting with the Rusutsu officials, although the IR plan in the village fell through, according to the sources.

Akimoto became state minister at the Cabinet Office and at the land ministry in August 2017.

In the October 2018 cabinet shake-up, Akimoto was reappointed state minister at the Cabinet Office and assumed a concurrent post of state minister at the Environment Ministry. He served in the posts until September this year.

Over the suspected wrongdoing, Akimoto has told reporters that he had received no money and that he had done “no favor at all” for the Chinese company’s side.

Jiji Press