Real estate developer Heo Young Joong, a known fixer with ties to politicians and the underworld, was sentenced Friday to seven years in prison for bilking a Tokyo-based petroleum goods seller out of about 18 billion yen in 1996.
The Tokyo District Court found Heo, 55, guilty of swindling Ishibashi Sangyo out of promissory notes with a face value of 17.9 billion yen after he pitched a false scheme to take over a construction firm.
In the same trial, Morikazu Tanaka, a 59-year-old former prosecutor, received a four-year prison for his role in the fraud, while two close aides to Heo were sentenced to suspended terms of 34 and 36 months in prison.