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Anonymous ID: 88e515 Dec. 30, 2019, 4:40 p.m. No.7667031   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>7160 >>7193

China firm kept record of payment to Akimoto

 

A Chinese company suspected of paying bribes to lawmaker Tsukasa Akimoto in a scandal linked to the development of casino resorts in Japan kept a record of an alleged payment, The Yomiuri Shimbun has learned.

 

The special investigation squad of the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office has already obtained the record of the alleged payment and believes it can be used as evidence that money was illegally received by Akimoto, according to investigative sources.

 

House of Representatives member Akimoto, 48, was arrested on suspicion of receiving ¥3 million in cash from three former senior officials of 500.com — including Masahiko Konno, 48, and Katsunori Nakazato, 47 — in late September 2017 and also having the Chinese firm pay about ¥700,000 for a trip Akimoto and his family went on in mid-February 2018 to the village of Rusutsu, Hokkaido, where the company was planning to get involved in a casino resort business. Akimoto was a state minister of the Cabinet Office in charge of casino resort projects when the two incidents are alleged to have occurred.

 

According to the sources, Konno and Nakazato allegedly visited Akimoto’s office in Nagatacho, Tokyo, on Sept. 28, 2017, the day the lower house was dissolved, and handed him ¥3 million.

 

A record of the payment was stored on an electronic device by someone at 500.com that included the name of the recipient and the amount of money paid, according to the sources. In an interview with The Yomiuri Shimbun before his arrest, Akimoto said, “I neither received money under the table nor was I involved in any wrongdoing.”

 

According to his lawyer, he has continued to deny all charges against him since his arrest.

 

https://the-japan-news.com/news/article/0006259497?fp=5db946146cb714aaca68ee9d56489b28