Kanagawa Prefectural Police sent papers to prosecutors Thursday on a director of the Japan Federation of Employers Associations (Nikkeiren) and a lawyer, both of whom are suspected of extorting 20 million yen from a group of company executives.
The papers name Yoshio Tsubouchi, 79, Nikkeiren executive director and former president of publishing house Diamond Inc., and Shozo Nakajima, 58, a lawyer and former prosecutor. They are accused of conspiring with a gang member and a company executive in 1998 to use threats to obtain a check for 20 million yen from the executives of a Tokyo-based warehouse-management company, police said.
Investigators have raided Nakajima's Tokyo office and other locations in connection with the case. The senior member of a gangster group and the company executive have been convicted of extortion in the case.
Tsubouchi and Nakajima have denied the charges against them.