TOKYO (TR) – On Friday, Tokyo Metropolitan Police re-arrested the former president of a long-established bearing trading company and two others on suspicion of defrauding Mizuho Bank out of hundreds of millions of yen in loans. The development is the latest in an investigation that has uncovered suspected fraud in the billions of yen, some of which was earmarked for the purchase of real estate and leasing o luxury vehicles. Long-running bearing trading company Horimasa Kogyo is in the middle of bankruptcy proceedings.
The three suspects are former president Masaharu Hori, 69, former general affairs manager Shigeyasu Okuma, 73, and 74-year-old tax accountant Kenichi Yamaguchi. In the latest arrest, the three are suspected of submitting falsified financial statements in around November and December of last year to defraud Mizuho Bank of 600 million yen in loans. The statements were window-dressed to make it appear as if the company was profitable, when in fact it was actually in the red.
Last month, Hori and his associates were arrested for allegedly defrauding Mitsubishi UFJ Bank of 500 million yen in loans using the same method. They were indicted this month. It is believed that the three had prepared different financial statements for each financial institution by padding sales and reducing liabilities.
The investigation is ongoing, with police believing that three were trying to conceal the large amount of money they had borrowed from other banks in order to obtain other .