Prosecutors acquire recordings of ex-Tokyo Video games exec, go well with retailer conferences

TOKYO — Prosecutors have obtained recordings made by clothes large Aoki Holdings Inc. of its former chairman’s conferences with a Tokyo Video games organizing committee government earlier than the agency was named an official Olympic sponsor, of their ongoing probe of bribery allegations towards the 2 males, a supply near the case informed the Mainichi Shimbun.

Haruyuki Takahashi, 78, a former government board member of the Tokyo Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Video games, was arrested on suspicion of taking bribes from 83-year-old former Aoki Holdings chairman Hironori Aoki, who was arrested for allegedly offering the bribes.

The Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Workplace’s particular investigation unit is seemingly treating the assembly recordings as bodily proof substantiating the allegations.

In response to the supply, Takahashi met with Aoki a number of occasions, together with at a steak restaurant in Tokyo owned by Takahashi, from round January 2017 — a few yr and 9 months earlier than the go well with retailer was named an official Olympic sponsor. There are apparently a number of recordings, made by Aoki’s subordinates on the conferences as memoranda.

The 2 are believed to have been negotiating Olympic sponsorship charges across the time the conferences befell. A recording of 1 assembly in summer time 2017 not solely contains the remarks the 2 made, but in addition of Aoki’s brother Takahisa, the retailer’s 76-year-old former deputy chairman, and government director Katsuhisa Ueda, 40. Each males have been arrested on suspicion of bribery.

Takahashi is alleged to have informed these round him earlier than his arrest, “I met with the previous chairman a number of occasions, and I do not keep in mind what sort of conversations we had at what level.”

Nevertheless, he’s suspected to have approached the ex-chairman in January 2017 about changing into a sponsor for a 750-million-yen (about $5.5 million) price. The 2 allegedly agreed by that summer time that the agency would pay a sponsor price of 500 million yen ($3.7 million), along with 250 million yen ($1.8 million) upfront to athletic organizations urged by Takahashi to cowl coaching prices.

Takahashi has reportedly denied this allegation, saying, “There isn’t any reality to the suggestion that I approached (the ex-chairman) a few 750-million-yen price. And we didn’t negotiate the sponsorship price upfront.”

The particular investigation unit is predicted to make use of the recordings to verify particulars of the exchanges amongst these concerned within the alleged bribery scheme with former Aoki Holdings executives and the previous Tokyo Video games government.

Takahashi has been arrested on suspicion of accepting a complete of 51 million yen (about $373,000) in bribes from the three Aoki Holdings executives between October 2017 and March 2022, tied to the executives’ many requests that the agency obtain favorable remedy in its Video games sponsorship software in addition to within the manufacturing and sale of licensed Olympic merchandise.

Takahashi is reportedly denying the costs. Hironori Aoki additionally informed particular unit investigators earlier than his arrest that the cash he had paid Takahashi didn’t represent bribes.

(Japanese unique by Yujiro Futamura, Shintaro Iguchi, Tomonori Matsuo and Taisuke Shimabukuro, Tokyo Metropolis Information Division)