A Chinese company suspected of paying 3 million yen in cash as a bribe to lawmaker Tsukasa Akimoto in connection with the country's casino resorts project has compiled a memo noting the firm also paid 1 million yen each to five more House of Representatives lawmakers, sources have said.
The special investigation squad of the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office, which obtained the memo, questioned the five on a voluntary basis late last year, and several of them admitted to receiving the money, the sources said.
The sources also said that the Chinese company, called 500.com, brought about 22.5 million yen from Hong Kong to Japan in late September 2017 and allegedly spent the money on bribing Akimoto and the other five. Akimoto, 48, has been arrested on suspicion of taking bribes.
The memo listed Hiroyuki Nakamura, Takeshi Iwaya, Toshimitsu Funahashi and Masahisa Miyazaki from the Liberal Democratic Party, and Mikio Shimoji from Nippon Ishin no Kai, in addition to Akimoto, who was a state minister of the Cabinet Office in charge of the integrated resorts (IR) project, which is centered around casinos.
Back then, 500.com was aiming to get involved in the IR projects in Hokkaido and Okinawa Prefecture. Hokkaido is the regional electoral base of Nakamura, 58, and Funahashi, 59, while Okinawa is the base of Shimoji, 58, and Miyazaki, 54. Furthermore, according to the 2018 registry of a suprapartisan league of lawmakers who promote the projects, former Defense Minister Iwaya, 62, Shimoji and Nakamura were executive members of the league, while Miyazaki is currently a parliamentary vice minister of justice.
The memo has been stored on an electronic device owned by 500.com, and the company has told investigators that it offered 1 million yen each to the five lawmakers, the sources said.
Two former advisers to 500.com, Masahiko Konno, 48, and Katsunori Nakazato, 47, are believed to have actually handed over the money. The two have been arrested on suspicion of giving bribes.
It is suspected that when the lower house was dissolved on Sept. 28, 2017, 500.com gave 3 million yen in cash to Akimoto in the name of a contribution to show support for an election win, then gave 1 million yen to each of the five other lawmakers under the same pretext.
Some of those lawmakers admitted that they received the money when interrogated by prosecutors. As for Miyazaki though, 500.com said it gave money to his secretary, and there is a possibility that he has not received it. Iwaya, who is believed to have been provided with the money through Nakamura, may not have been aware that the money came from 500.com.
Since Dec. 27 last year, The Yomiuri Shimbun has been asking these Diet members whether they were offered money. Nakamura, Funahashi, Miyazaki and Shimoji have denied that such money was provided to them, while Iwaya said, "I have nothing to say."
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