Daiwa Securities execs implicate boss>
The four Daiwa Securities Co. executives arrested Tuesday for giving illicit financial favors to a "sokaiya" corporate extortionist have told police the brokerage's vice president gave them the go-ahead to do so, sources said Wednesday.
Daiwa is suspected of providing 800 million yen in loans to Ryuichi Koike, 54, through an affiliated nonbank financial institution in January 1994. Koike, a powerful sokaiya, is at under arrest in connection with illicit payoffs from other brokerages and Dai-Ichi Kangyo Bank.
Soichi Tada, 51, a former general affairs manager at Daiwa who was among those arrested Tuesday, told investigators the loans were given with permission from Hiromistu Sogame, 61, vice president at the time, the sources said. Prosecutors raided Daiwa's head office and other related locations Wednesday morning, following the arrests of four Daiwa officials Tuesday over their alleged involvement in the payoffs. The 800 million yen in question is considered to be a loan without collateral.
Tada and other Daiwa executives had been threatened by Koike in order to obtain compensation for massive losses stemming from discretionary stock trading, which is banned under the Securities and Exchange Law, the sources said. The loans were provided as part of the compensation for these losses, they added. Investigators at the Tokyo District Public Prosecutor's Office are regarding the loans as important evidence that Daiwa illegally provided favors to Koike in violation of the Commercial Code.
The investigators are interviewing Sogame over the loans and his possible involvement in the case.