Tokyo prosecutors will in a few days charge a former senior secretary of ex-Liberal Democratic Party Secretary General Koichi Kato with having evaded 50 million yen in taxes by concealing about 150 million yen in income, investigative sources said Monday.
Investigators from the Tokyo District Public Prosecutor's Office suspect Saburo Sato, 61, failed to declare about 150 million yen in income from Rising Production Co., a major talent agency that has renamed itself Freegate Promotion Co., the sources said.
According to the sources, Sato received 150 million yen from Rising Production in two separate installments around June 1997.
The money was delivered to Sato by Yasuo Harase, then administration division chief of Rising Production, on orders from then Rising Production President Tetsuo Taira, the sources said.
On March 8, Sato was arrested on suspicion of evading 104 million yen in taxes by concealing 277 million yen in income in the three years through 2000.
Kato, 62, resigned as a lawmaker earlier this month to take the blame for the scandal.
Harase, 54, and Taira, 55, are currently on trial for suspected corporate income law violations.
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