OSAKA (Kyodo) Police arrested six members of a loan-sharking group Tuesday for collecting illegally high interest on loans by intimidating a man, his wife and her older brother in Yao, Osaka Prefecture. The three eventually committed suicide.
On June 14, 2003, the man, a 61-year-old janitorial worker, his 69-year-old wife and her 81-year-old brother committed suicide by jumping in front of a train at a grade crossing in Yao.
The woman left behind a suicide note saying she had made interest payments of about 200,000 yen on a 30,000 yen loan and had experienced hardships because of the moneylender's threats.
The six lenders include Hiroshi Wasano, 31, a restaurant operator in Tokyo, Makoto Motoyama, 22, a company employee in Ogaki, Gifu Prefecture, and Kensaku Hajime, 24, a contract worker in Neyagawa, Osaka Prefecture. All are members of an alleged loan-sharking group.
A joint task force from six prefectural police forces -- Osaka, Saitama, Yamanashi, Wakayama, Nagasaki and Okinawa -- made the arrest, police said.
The two men are suspected of extending about 70,000 yen in loans to the woman from April to June 2003 and collecting about 300,000 yen in interest -- an amount that was more than 130 times higher than the legal limit for interest charges, police said.
They also arrested two other men in a separate loan-sharking case and placed a third man, suspected of being a ringleader, on a wanted list. The three are suspected of operating an illegal lending business in Naha, Okinawa Prefecture, since January.
The three men may also have been involved in the 2003 suicide of the three in Osaka Prefecture, police said.