OSAKA (Kyodo) Police said Sunday they have sent papers to prosecutors on three truck-leasing executives involved in two separate cases of falsifying truck registrations to circumvent prefectural emissions regulations.
The three include a 54-year-old executive of Tokyo-based Actio Co., a firm that leases heavy machinery, the Osaka Prefectural Police said.
The Actio executive allegedly falsified the registrations of 7,000 of the company's 11,000 diesel trucks, the police said.
Investigators said the executive registered the trucks, which were intended to be used in Osaka, at a transportation authority in Wakayama Prefecture in February 2005 to elude Osaka's strict air regulations, which require exhaust filters.
The trucks, made in 1996, did not have exhaust filters to control the amount of nitrogen oxide and particulate matter ejected into the air.
The police have already ordered the firm to correct the registrations.
The other case involves two executives at Token Co., a leasing company based in Higashiosaka, Osaka Prefecture, the police said.