Vietnam bribe nets four Japanese
06-AUG-2008 Intellasia | Kyodo News
Aug 6, 2008 - 7:00:00 AM
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Prosecutors said Monday they have arrested the former president of a Tokyo-based construction consultancy firm and three others for suspected bribery in connection with the government's official development assistance to Vietnam.
The Tokyo District Public Prosecutor's Office suspects former Pacific Consultants International President Masayoshi Taga, 62, and the others gave US$820,000 to a senior HCM City government official in connection with a road building project in violation of the unfair competition prevention law that bans bribing a foreign official.
Kunio Takasu, a 65-year-old former PCI managing director who is among the four arrested, is believed to have passed the cash to the ranking official in the public works bureau of the HCM City People's Committee, or the municipal government, investigative sources said.
The remaining two are Haruo Sakashita, a 62-year-old executive, and Tsuneo Sakano, 58, a former head of PCI's Hanoi office, they said.
Takasu was quoted as saying that he "received an order" from Taga. Investigators suspect it may have been a bribery operation involving the entire company. PCI is based in Tama, Tokyo.
The senior Vietnamese official admitted to receiving the cash when he was questioned by Vietnamese law enforcement authorities, the sources said.
In 2001 and 2003, PCI won a Japanese yen 3.1 billion order for overseeing a road construction project executed by the HCM City government and financed by Japanese official aid, the sources said.
In summer 2006, Takasu, who was then an executive in charge of marketing, allegedly gave US$220,000 to the local government official in person at the instruction of Taga. In winter 2003, the same Vietnamese official was allegedly given US$600,000.
Both were intended as rewards in return for the order PCI won, the sources said.
Takasu was then head of a company PCI set up in Hong Kong with the aim of running operations for PCI to win orders for projects in Southeast Asia financed by loans from the Japanese government.
Taga has been indicted over fraud in connection with a Japanese government-financed project in China.
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