A sergeant in the Metropolitan Police Department was arrested Wednesday for allegedly accepting bribes from a Daiwa Securities Co. executive in return for information about an investigation into a fraud and embezzlement case involving a Daiwa branch.Takayoshi Hontao, a police inspector attached to the MPD's Personnel Affairs Division, was dismissed in disgrace before he was arrested, police sources said. Also arrested was a Daiwa executive for allegedly handing the bribes over to the police officer.Hontao, 44, was in charge of the investigation into the case of fraud and embezzlement involving the manager of Daiwa's Kunitachi branch in 1993. He was an assistant inspector in the MPD's Second Investigation Section at the time, the sources said. Officers from the Tokyo District Public Prosecutor's Office and the MPD later searched Daiwa's head office in the Nihonbashi Kabutocho district in connection with the bribery case.Kiyoshi Komono, 43, deputy director of Daiwa's Human Talent Development Department, was identified as the official who handed over the bribe, police said. According to investigators, Hontao is suspected of receiving a total of 2.8 million yen from Komono on about 20 occasions between October 1993 and last February. The money was handed over at restaurants in Tokyo's Shinjuku district, the investigators alleged.Hontao is also suspected of accepting travel coupons worth 500,000 yen in July 1993 at one of Daiwa's Tokyo offices. In addition, he was allegedly wined and dined about a dozen times in the five-year period starting in summer 1993, investigative sources said.In return, Hontao allegedly provided Komono with information regarding the progress of the investigation into the case. Mitsuhiro Yanagitani, then manager of Daiwa's Kunitachi branch, and other employees, allegedly defrauded three corporate executives of securities totaling about 2.4 billion yen in October and November 1993. Yanagitani was later given an eight-year prison sentence, police said.
