A "sokaiya" corporate racketeer has admitted that payments from Mitsubishi Motors Corp. were made to him in exchange for his services, police sources said Monday.
Terubo Tei, 53, also known as Teiji Nakamoto, told investigators he demanded the payments as "fees" for company employees' use of a beach house run by Tei's wife, in return for his silence at the firm's shareholder meetings. Tei had maintained in earlier questioning that the payments made into the bank account of a Tokyo-based company run by Tei's wife were business transactions and not payoffs, police sources said.
Four Mitsubishi Motors executives were arrested last month on suspicion of paying more than 9 million yen between 1995 and 1997 to Tei and another sokaiya, Kaoru Hamada. Twenty companies are suspected of making similar payments into the account, ostensibly for use of the seaside inn in Fujisawa, Kanagawa Prefecture.
Police are conducting further investigations into Mitsubishi Electric Corp., Mitsubishi Estate Co., Hitachi Ltd., Toshiba Corp. and other companies that made particularly large payments into the bank account.
For the past several years, Mitsubishi Electric has paid about 1.5 million yen annually, while Mitsubishi Estate has paid around 1 million yen, investigation sources said. Hitachi began paying 500,000 yen each year from 1986, and from 1995, the remittances increased to 950,000 yen, according to the sources.
Toshiba allegedly paid 500,000 yen in cash each year from around 1986, and increased the amount to 700,000 yen from 1993.