The former president of a waste management firm was arrested Friday on suspicion of bribing a government official to obtain classified information relating to the nuclear power industry, police said.
Osamu Ishikura, 52, the former owner of a company based in Tsukuba, Ibaraki Prefecture, turned himself in to authorities two days after the arrest of 45-year-old Toshiyuki Takahashi, a deputy division chief at the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency.
Takahashi is suspected of receiving 10.5 million yen in bribes between August 1999 and August 2001 from Ishikura and Yoshinori Okamoto, a 39-year-old former board member at a Shizuoka-based computer software firm.
Okamoto was also arrested Wednesday.
Investigators allege that Takahashi, a chief safety inspector for Japanese nuclear power plants, started leaking government information to the pair in 1998 while he was working at a Diet science and technology office serving lawmakers.
The information concerned the potential business uses of and potential clients for computerized designs of nuclear plant facilities, desalination projects and other industrial projects, according to the investigators.
The pair allegedly used the information to launch new businesses.
These ventures were unsuccessful, however, due to a lack of technological expertise.
Takahashi, a former technician at the defunct Science and Technology Agency, worked at the House of Representatives office from 1998 until January 2001, when he was transferred to the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency.