To use this site, please disable the ad blocking feature and reload the page.
This website uses cookies to collect information about your visit for purposes such as showing you personalized ads and content, and analyzing our website traffic. By clicking “Accept all,” you will allow the use of these cookies.
Users accessing this site from EEA countries and UK are unable to view this site without your consent. We apologize for any inconvenience caused.
Tokyo prosecutors have decided to indict without detention Megumi Hirose, 58, a former member of the House of Councillors who resigned on Aug. 15, for fraud over the government-paid salary for a secretary.
The amount of the secretarial salary suspected to have been swindled from the central government comes to more than ¥3 million. No charges are expected to be filed against the public secretary and others who were involved in the case under Hirose’s alleged direction.
Tokyo prosecutors searched Hirose’s home and offices on July 30, on suspicion of fraud against the central government by providing one of her secretaries with a salary even though the person did not work. It is said that another of her secretaries lent his wife’s name to Hirose at her direction, and he gave almost of the resulting secretarial salary to Hirose.
The prosecutors decided that Hirose, who is also a lawyer, should be held criminally responsible for the fraud, even though she resigned from the Diet, emphasizing that she allegedly orchestrated the salary fraud and received most of the defrauded money.
