Kimura Construction Co. accepted partial payment for building a hotel in Nara Prefecture in November even though its president knew the inn was designed based on fabricated structural-strength data provided by now-disqualified architect Hidetsugu Aneha, police sources said Friday.
The allegation could prompt police to file a fraud charge against the head of Kimura, Moriyoshi Kimura, 74, who is expected to be arrested soon on suspicion of window-dressing the now-failed contractor's financial statements.
Aneha's fabrication of earthquake-resistance data was revealed Oct. 25 to those involved in the fraud, including condominium developer Huser Ltd.'s president, Susumu Ojima, one of Aneha's clients, and others, the sources said.
Kimura was informed about the falsified data Oct. 27 by Ojima and Akira Shinozuka, who then headed Kimura Construction's Tokyo office, the sources said. It was three weeks before the Land, Infrastructure and Transport Ministry made public the series of fabrications.
Despite being given this information, Kimura's firm received 220 million yen in early November from Sun Hotel in Nara as part of the payment for building the hotel, which opened Nov. 5, they said.
The hotel was forced to close Nov. 25 following the Nov. 17 announcement that fabricated data was used for the construction.
Kimura built more than half of the at least 98 buildings in 18 prefectures linked to Aneha's data fraud.
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