TOKYO: The arrested people related to a Chinese company suspected of bribing Japanese lawmaker Tsukasa Akimoto have told public prosecutors that the firm also provided cash to five other members of the Diet, Japan's parliament, according to informed sources.

The company is believed to have offered the money to the five lawmakers sometime around late September 2017, when it allegedly provided 3 million yen in cash to Akimoto, the sources said Wednesday.

Akimoto, a 48-year-old member of the House of Representatives, the lower chamber of the Diet, was arrested late last year by the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office on suspicion of taking bribes.

The company kept in a digital device records of the apparent bribes given to the five lawmakers, the sources said.

The Chinese firm was aiming to open a casino-featuring integrated report in the northernmost Japan prefecture of Hokkaido. The prosecutors' office believes that the company attempted to approach lawmakers showing support for IR projects, the sources said.

On Dec. 25 last year, the prosecutors' office arrested a 37-year-old former executive of a Tokyo subsidiary of the Chinese company, 500.com, and two advisers at the Shenzhen-based online sports lottery provider.

The three are suspected of giving the 3 million yen to Akimoto, former state minister in charge of IRs at the Cabinet Office, as a financial contribution to his election campaign on Sept. 28, 2017, when the Lower House was dissolved for a snap election.

The company also allegedly invited Akimoto and his family to a trip to Hokkaido and shouldered their travel expenses totaling some 700,000 yen.

During the investigations by the prosecutors' office, the suspects of the Chinese firm side explained in detail how they offered the bribes to Akimoto and said they kept digital records of the bribes.

Jiji Press