The Tokyo High Court on Thursday overruled a lower court ruling and ordered "loan shark king" Susumu Kajiyama to pay 5.1 billion yen in forfeiture in a case of laundering money amassed in a massive usury network, but reduced his prison sentence by six months to 6 1/2 years.

The Tokyo District Court said in February that Kajiyama's money-laundering operation stretched beyond national borders and there had never been a case "so malicious or wide-reaching."

The lower court sentenced Kajiyama, 56, to seven years imprisonment and fined him 30 million yen, but rejected prosecutors' demands for the defendant to pay an additional 5.1 billion yen in forfeiture. The high court upheld the fine.