A former director of Tokyo Games received money through an acquaintance’s company

Tokyo, Sept. 7 (Jiji Press)–A consulting firm that allegedly received bribes from Japanese publisher Kadokawa Corp. sent a large sum of money to Haruyuki Takahashi, a former executive of the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics organizing committee, informed sources said on Wednesday.

The Tokyo District Procuratorate’s special team estimates that the bribes, totaling about 76 million yen, were partly paid to Takahashi.

Takahashi, 78, who received a new term on Tuesday on suspicion of taking bribes from Kadokawa for a Tokyo Games sponsorship deal, has a 20% stake in the company. council headed by Kazumasa Fukami, a 73-year-old acquaintance of Takahashi.

Takahashi allegedly conspired with Fukami, who was arrested on Tuesday for bribery, to get Kadokawa to pay some 76 million yen in return for responding to the publisher’s request to back his bid to become a Tokyo Games sponsor.

The money, which the task force considers bribes, was deposited into a bank account at Fukami’s company in the name of consulting fees between July 2019 and January 2021. The Tokyo Games were held in the summer of 2021 after a one-year postponement due to the covid19 pandemic.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]