Koichi Miyakawa, a Finance Ministry inspector who is under arrest, deleted part of a 1994 ministry report on problem loans extended by Dai-Ichi Kangyo Bank to "sokaiya" corporate extortionist Ryuichi Koike, the key figure in a huge financial-sector payoff scandal, at the request of a Dai-Ichi Kangyo executive, prosecution investigators revealed Wednesday.Miyakawa, 53, was head of the financial inspection office of the Finance Ministry's Financial Inspection Department before he was arrested Monday, along with another inspection official. The ministry began an inspection of Dai-Ichi Kangyo financing operations in October 1994, prosecution sources said.Toward the end of the probe in December 1994, one of Miyakawa's subordinates highlighted problems over loans provided by the bank to a company owned by a relative of Koike, 54, who is now on trial on charges of receiving illegal payoffs from Dai-Ichi Kangyo and the nation's top brokerages.In data attached to the report, Miyakawa's subordinate named the building owned by the company and pointed out that it was possible the loans would become delinquent, the sources said. Dai-Ichi Kangyo allegedly asked Miyakawa to delete that portion of the report, and his subordinate destroyed the attached information. However, the report still included notes concerning loans connected with Koike, they said.
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