A former employee of a company that managed a Yamanashi Prefecture campground where three male bodies were unearthed this week has told police that he had buried a box that may have contained the corpses at the instruction of a gangster, police sources said Wednesday.
The senior mob boss, who has since died from illness, had close ties with Yoshihiro Asa, former president of Asahi Kensetsu, a bankrupt local construction company that had managed the campground in Tsuru, they said.
Asa, 54, was arrested late last month for allegedly embezzling insurance benefits that were supposed to be paid to an employee who was injured in a traffic accident.
Police will question Asa further about the gangster's possible involvement in the murders of the three men and the burying of their bodies. The victims are thought to have worked for Asahi Kensetsu.
The former employee has told investigators that the firm buried a box-shaped container and dug another hole the same day in May 2000 at the behest of the gangster, who was at the site that day.