Police said Thursday they arrested seven people, including the chairman of a Tokyo-based "shinkin" savings-and-loan bank and a gang leader, on suspicion they conspired to arrange an illegal loan to a company linked to the mobster, despite knowing it would cause losses for the bank.
Police suspect 71-year-old Tsutomu Shizu, chairman of Kosan Shinkin Bank based in Tokyo's Chiyoda Ward, and four other executives of having the bank arrange a loan of 400 million yen to a Tokyo real estate company under the control of gang leader Takateru Tsukui, 68, a friend of Shizu, in July 2001.
The bankers are suspected of deliberately overvaluing property used as collateral for the loan. The property, a piece of residential land, had already been impounded by the government at the time it was used to secure the loan. The real estate company was in financial difficulty, police said.
The 400 million yen loan was extended on the pretext of helping the real estate company buy an industrial waste disposal facility in Ibaraki Prefecture, but it was mostly used to run Tsukui's underworld syndicate and for his personal use, they added.