Dai-Ichi Kangyo Bank President Katsuhiko Kondo admitted June 5 that DKB executives had maintained cozy relations with a late powerful "sokaiya" leader, and that the man even influenced personnel matters at the major commercial bank.
Rikiya Kijima, who died in 1993, is known to have been one of the most powerful corporate extortionists in the nation. Kondo said during unsworn testimony before the Lower House Budget Committee that former DKB executives started giving special favors to sokaiya Ryuichi Koike -- now under arrest over the scandal involving DKB and Nomura Securities Co. -- at Kijima's request.
It was the second time Kondo has been summoned to the Diet to testify about more than 30 billion yen in uncollateralized loans the bank has allegedly made since the 1980s to a younger brother of Koike. The elder Koike is believed to have used the funds to buy stocks in the nation's four largest securities firms, including Nomura. Ryuichi, 54, and Yoshinori Koike, 52, were arrested May 15 on suspicion of taking about 49.7 million yen from Nomura in violation of the Commercial Code, which prohibits companies from paying off corporate racketeers.