Prosecutor Hiroshi Morimoto, known as a highflyer in the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office, was assigned as the chief public prosecutor at Tsu District Public Prosecutors Office as of Friday after serving an unusually long term as chief of the special investigations unit.
Morimoto, 52, brought down former Nissan Motor Co. Chairman Carlos Ghosn and three incumbent Diet members during his 34-month term as the chief of the special investigation unit. The term of service is usually about 18 months.
He worked on a spate of major cases including the arrest and indictment of Ghosn, 66. Morimoto's efforts helped recover the reputation of a prosecutors' special investigations unit -- after the revelations of evidence-tampering and a cover-up scandal involving the Osaka District Public Prosecutors Office in 2010.
Takashi Shinkawa, chief of the special trial affairs department of the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office, replaces Morimoto as the special investigations unit chief.
Morimoto was appointed the unit's chief in September 2017. He investigated a major construction company in December that year, which led to the uncovering of a bid-rigging scandal involving the Chuo Shinkansen project based on the superconducting maglev system.
He also led a series of corruption scandal cases in which director-general-level officials at the Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry were arrested and indicted in the summer of 2018.
Morimoto also actively used the Japanese version of a plea-bargaining system that was introduced in June 2018.
In July of the same year, he uncovered a bribery case involving a foreign government official and applied the plea-bargaining system for the first time. In November, he arrested Ghosn in a deal with two of Ghosn's former aides.
In December 2019, his special investigations squad arrested House of Representatives lawmaker Tsukasa Akimoto, 48, on suspicion of taking bribes over a project for integrated resorts, which include casinos, in Japan. It was the first time in 10 years that a Diet member had been arrested.
In June this year, the team arrested two more Diet members -- lower house lawmaker and former Justice Minister Katsuyuki Kawai, 57, and his wife and House of Councillors member Anri, 46 -- on suspicion of buying votes in a scandal related to her campaign in the upper house election.
"He cut into political, bureaucratic and business irregularities, raising the power of the special investigations unit," a senior prosecutor said.
However, there were always some who regarded him as heavy-handed in his investigations and his methods of handling cases.
In the maglev bid-rigging case, former executives from two major construction companies, who denied the suspicions, were arrested and indicted, while former officials from two other such companies, who admitted to the suspicions, were not subject to criminal liability.
In the case of the Kawais, none of the 100 individuals who allegedly received a bribe have been indicted.
In a bribery scandal involving a foreign public official, who was the first to get a plea deal, a former director of a major power generation equipment manufacturer was indicted without being arrested for conspiring with accomplices.
The Tokyo High Court sentenced him to pay a fine on July 21, saying he was "only an abettor."
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