Police searched the Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry and several dozen other places Friday in connection with charges that a former ministry official received about 500,000 yen in cash for helping an agricultural cooperative receive favors related to government-backed projects.
Police searched the ministry, the Shikoku Okawa agricultural cooperative in the Kagawa Prefecture town of Sangawa and other locations following the arrest Thursday of Tsuguo Joko, 47, on suspicion of accepting the cash from the head of the co-op in February 1997 in Tokyo.
As assistant division director at the ministry's Agricultural Structure Improvement Bureau, which is in charge of state-funded projects, Joko used his influence to include the cooperative in projects subsidized by the central government, police said.
Specifically, he gave preferential treatment to the cooperative's efforts to sell agricultural products at a hall in the ministry-linked Furusato Information Center in Tokyo in the mid-1990s, they said.
At the government-backed promotional event, Joko cooked and sold Japanese "udon" noodles while wearing an outfit bearing the co-op's name, ministry officials said.
Joko is also suspected of having received more than 1 million yen worth of entertainment from the cooperative in the form of wining and dining in a number of establishments, including a nightclub in Tokyo's Ginza district, police said.
Joko is also suspected of charging the cost of his personal meals and drinks at nightclubs and sushi bars in Ginza to the cooperative's account.
The bills are believed to have totaled more than 1 million yen, police said.
The cooperative made payments to the nightclubs and sushi bars on about 200 occasions over several years totaling some 10 million yen, and the payments included Joko's charges, police said.
Police said they suspect Joko received more bribes in the form of money or entertainment.