A former Tokyo Olympic committee member has been arrested for allegedly bribed to secure a company sponsorship contract and give it approval to sell official Games goods.
The Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office arrested Haruyuki Takahashi, 78, on August 17 for allegedly taking bribes from Aoki Holdings Inc., a business wear company, in exchange for securing a sponsorship contract and approval for the company to sell branded Olympic merchandise.
Aoki, 83, the founder and former chairman of Aoki, and Katsuhisa Ueda, 40, a senior managing director of the company, were arrested for allegedly offering bribes, according to the sources.
Takahashi was accused of having received 51 million yen $378,580 in bribes from October 2017 to March 2022 after Aoki and others asked him in January 2017 to ensure that Aoki Holdings would be chosen as an official Games sponsor and allowed to sell Olympics branded apparel, according to prosecutors.
Takahashi denied pushing committee officials to give the company such favorable treatment, saying money was paid for consulting services.
According to sources, the former chairman of Aoki told investigators that the payment was not intended to bribe Takahashi but to be introduced to his network of influential contacts.
Sources said the consulting firm of Takahashi signed a contract with a subsidiary of the apparel company in September 2017 and received 1 million yen per month in consulting fees.
In October 2018, the organizing committee appointed Aoki Holdings as a Tokyo 2020 Olympic Official Supporter and authorized it to sell official products, including business suits with the Olympic emblem.
The organizing committee created the advertising behemoth Dentsu Inc., where Takahashi previously served as a senior managing director to coordinate applications from potential sponsors.
Dentsu also loaned out many of its officials to the committee's marketing division, which oversaw the screening of official Olympic merchandise before approving their sale.
Aoki Holdings paid 750 million yen in sponsorship fees, according to the sources. Most of the 250 million yen the company had paid in advance in 2017 was transferred to Takahashi's consultancy firm through a Dentsu subsidiary, while the remaining 500 million yen was sent to the organizing committee via the subsidiary.
In late July, Prosecutors raided the offices of the consultancy firm, Dentsu and Aoki Holdings. Since then, they have been analyzing the documents they seized and conducting voluntary questioning of people close to the matter.
The former chairman of Aoki, Takahashi, said that they were confident that Takahashi would have taken bribes in the form of consulting fees in exchange for urging Dentsu officials to ensure Aoki Holdings won its sponsorship contract and gained permission to sell Olympic-branded clothing, as requested by the prosecutors.
The senior Aoki officials were arrested for charges of 28 million yen out of the 51 million yen they offered Takahashi in bribes as the three-year statute of limitations expired.