Prosecutors served on Monday a new arrest warrant for subsidy fraud totaling more than 90 million yen ($826,000) against the former head of an Osaka school operator earlier embroiled in a scandal over a discounted purchase of public land. Yasunori Kagoike, the 64-year…
Prosecutors served on Monday a new arrest warrant for subsidy fraud totaling more than 90 million yen ($826,000) against the former head of an Osaka school operator earlier embroiled in a scandal over a discounted purchase of public land.
Yasunori Kagoike, the 64-year-old former head of Moritomo Gakuen, and his 60-year-old wife Junko allegedly swindled about 92.5 million yen from the Osaka prefectural government, based on investigations carried out by the prosecutors, more than what the local government initially claimed it to be.
The couple were also indicted Monday for fraudulently obtaining a total of about 56 million yen in subsidies from the central government.
The Kagoikes came into the spotlight earlier this year over the school operator’s purchase of public land in Osaka Prefecture in June 2016 to open an elementary school with ties to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s wife Akie, a plan that has since fizzled amid scrutiny into the land deal.
Abe has denied his or his wife’s involvement in the controversially cheap sale of land, but questions remain over whether the presence of Akie, who had served as the planned school’s honorary principal at one point, affected the deal in which a discount of some 800 million yen was given.
