A former employee of nonbank moneylender Nichiei Co. pleaded not guilty Monday to extortion, denying allegations that he told a Chiba couple to sell their body parts to repay a loan in 1998. As his trial opened before the Tokyo District Court, Yukihiro Wada, 45, who now works for Nihon Shinyou Hoshou Corp., a subsidiary of Kyoto-based Nichiei, said he asked the couple to repay a 7.2 million yen loan but denied using aggressive tactics. "I did not intimidate them or tell them to sell their kidneys," said Wada, who stands accused of violating the Money Lending Business Law. Defense counsel added that his tactics were "within the limit allowed in society." According to the prosecution, Wada, then with Nichiei, extorted 800,000 yen from the Chiba couple in a bid to meet his loan-collection quota. Prosecutors said Wada yelled at the man, who runs a construction company, and his wife in April 1998 at Nichiei's office in Chiba, telling them to get money from their parents and children for repayments. He then allegedly phoned the pair the following month and said, "Sell one of your kidneys. They can be sold for 3 million yen." In a similar case, Eisuke Arai, a former employee of Nichiei's Tokyo branch, was convicted Jan. 18 of trying to extort 5.7 million yen from a loan guarantor in 1998 by using similar threatening phone calls. He received a suspended sentence. Nichiei President Kazuo Matsuda has repeatedly denied allegations that the company was systematically involved in the use of strong-arm tactics to collect loans. But the Financial Supervisory Agency and the Finance Ministry's regional bureau in the Kinki region issued an administrative reprimand to Nichiei in January after concluding that it was engaging in coercive loan collection practices. To take responsibility for the reprimand, Matsuda announced last week that he will step down from his post at the end of February. His son, Ryuichi, will assume the post while he will remain a board member to help his son, Matsuda said.
