Police on Monday arrested a bureaucrat at the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries who was allegedly wined and dined to the tune of about 1.9 million yen by an agricultural cooperative in Kagawa Prefecture in return for favors involving farm subsidies.
Kinya Mizokami, 44, now assigned to the Hokkaido Prefectural Government on loan from the ministry, is suspected of having his bills at expensive bars in Tokyo footed by the Shikoku Okawa cooperative from 1997 in return for helping the group win subsides from the government in and around 1996, police said.
Police also arrested Yoshinobu Hirose, 70, the head of the cooperative, based in the town of Sangawa, and Taishi Yamashita, 56, who heads the cooperative's sales and development department, on suspicion of bribery, police said.