A 52-year-old construction company owner in Osaka has been arrested for threatening bomb attacks against confectioner Lotte Co. in a bid to extort 50 million yen, police said Thursday.
Yoji Sakai, a resident of Higashinari Ward, was arrested Wednesday night, police said.
According to investigators, Sakai sent a letter to Lotte's head office in Tokyo on June 13 threatening to set off bombs in stores selling Lotte products if he did not receive the cash. The letter contained about 1 gram of gunpowder.
Sakai then made several calls to the firm to check if the letter had been received. He was arrested when he turned up at a hotel in Nara to pick up the money.
He is about 10 million yen in debt, police said.