A former Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games organization official and three others were arrested in Japan on Wednesday in a case of rigged tenders, a new twist in the series of scandals surrounding the competition.
Tokyo prosecutors said in a press release that they had arrested Yasuo Mori, former deputy director of the Tokyo Games Organizing Committee, on suspicion of anti-competitive practices.
Three other employees of Japanese advertising giant Dentsu, a television production company and an events company were also arrested, prosecutors said.
The four men are accused of rigging a series of tenders totaling 40 billion yen ($300 million) for organizing Olympic events, local media reported.
According to the public prosecutor’s press release, between February and July 2018 they “restricted free competition against the public interest” in connection with the planning of Olympic test events.
Those arrested on Wednesday decided in advance which company would be awarded the contract and “agreed that only the company selected (in advance, ed.) as the contractor should participate in each tender,” the press release said further.
Dentsu “takes this situation very seriously” and will “fully cooperate with the authorities,” the group responded in a statement shared with AFP. Dentsu added that it intends to investigate the matter itself and take “rigorous action to restore the confidence of its shareholders.”
Prosecutors are also investigating corruption allegations surrounding the Tokyo Olympics, which another former manager (and ex-Dentsu manager), Haruyuki Takahashi, is accused of receiving bribes worth the equivalent of hundreds of thousands of euros, specifically for giving bribes advertising contracts.
This major scandal has tarnished the city of Sapporo (North)’s candidacy for the 2030 Winter Olympics.
Sapporo has therefore suspended promotional events and plans to survey the Japanese population to assess the popularity of his candidacy.
Suspicions of corruption have also long hung over the conditions for awarding Tokyo 2020, the Olympic Games, which finally took place in 2021 due to the COVID 19 pandemic.
In March 2019, the President of Japan’s Olympic Committee, Tsunekazu Takeda, resigned a few months after his indictment by the French judiciary.
Mr Takeda is suspected of compensating Black Tidings, a Singapore-based company described by French investigators as an “empty shell”, before and after the International Olympic Committee (IOC) nominated the Japanese capital.