Police served a fresh warrant Friday on a 48-year-old former employee of NHK for allegedly defrauding the public broadcaster of roughly 7.4 million yen between November 2000 and March 2001.
Katsumi Isono, a former chief producer at NHK, was served the warrant by the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department. A fresh warrant was also served on Hisayuki Uehara, 48, the president of an event planning firm.
Both have been indicted on separate fraud charges.
According to police, Isono fabricated documents to make it appear Uehara was involved in the production of 17 programs during the period in question and had the broadcaster pay some 7.4 million yen in commissions to the latter's bank account.
Investigators said they suspect Isono received more than 4 million yen of that amount in kickbacks. An internal probe by NHK showed that a total of 9.4 million yen found its way into Isono's pockets in a similar fashion.
Isono was quoted as saying he needed to remunerate Uehara for providing him with ideas for his programs.