The ongoing controversy surrounding Moritomo Gakuen took a new turn this week when a recording emerged of a meeting between the former head of the Osaka nationalist school operator and a Finance Ministry official.

The recording is of a March 2016 meeting where former head Yasunori Kagoike and the ministry are negotiating over a piece of property on which his elementary school was being built. The rental agreement was described by the official as a special case, while Kagoike indicated that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's wife, Akie, had heard about his negotiations for the site.

The recording was obtained by Kyodo News and other Japanese media outlets from freelance journalist Tamotsu Sugano, who has closely followed the Moritomo case and apparently won Kagoike's trust.