A Gifu Prefecture official recently fired for misappropriating money in a slush fund scandal that has rocked the government here was arrested Monday night for allegedly pocketing at least 5 million yen of it, police said Tuesday.
Michio Kishita, 49, is the first person arrested over the scandal, which involves multiple slush funds totaling an estimated 1.7 billion yen. More than half of Gifu's employees have been reprimanded.
The slush funds were built up over 12 years and nearly all sections of the prefectural government were involved.