A former justice minister and his wife offered more than 7 million yen ($65,300) to at least 30 local leaders in an apparent attempt to gain her votes last year, The Asahi Shimbun has found.

The finding comes at a time when prosecutors are looking into a suspected vote-buying case involving Katsuyuki Kawai, a Lower House member of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, and Anri Kawai, an LDP member who won her Upper House seat in the election in question last year.

The Kawais have denied allegations that they violated the Public Offices Election Law during voluntary questioning by the Hiroshima District Public Prosecutors Office, sources said.

The lawmakers also did not reply by the evening of May 17 to The Asahi Shimbun to confirm or deny the cash offers to the local leaders and the purpose of such acts.

In interviews with The Asahi Shimbun, 30 people acknowledged that the couple handed them cash before the Upper House election on July 21. Anri ran in the election from the Hiroshima constituency.

Those people were: nine prefectural assembly members; 10 city assembly members; one town assembly member; one former prefectural assembly member: two heads of local governments; four members of a support group; and three campaign staff members.

Some of the 30 said they either refused to accept the money or returned the cash to the couple.

The amount of cash offered ranged from 50,000 yen to 600,000 yen. About 40 percent of those who were offered money said the amount was 300,000 yen.

No receipts were created when the money changed hands.

Katsuyuki, who managed his wife’s campaign activities, brought the cash to 28 of the 30 people, they said. The remaining two were offered cash by either Anri or a prefectural assembly member who accompanied her.

The cash was offered between March last year, when Anri announced her intention to enter the Upper House election, and July, when the election was held.

The money was given under the name of “gift to an election campaign as a sign of support” or “gift to congratulate on winning a seat.”

In April, the prefectural assembly election and eight municipal elections were held in Hiroshima Prefecture.

A man who won a prefectural assembly seat recalled that Katsuyuki visited his office in late April.

“You are popular with voters,” the man quoted Katsuyuki as telling him.

Before Katsuyuki left the office, he put an envelope on the desk, saying, “This is to congratulate you on your success in the election.”

The assemblyman thought the envelope contained gift certificates. But he found it was filled with 300,000 yen in cash.

He said he figured that Katsuyuki gave the money to win his support for Anri’s election campaign. The assemblyman said he was going to return the money but did not have the opportunity to do so.

He also told The Asahi Shimbun that he gave the same account to prosecutors when he was questioned on a voluntary basis.

Other assembly members also assumed the money was intended to round up votes.

“I believed the cash offer was meant to seek support for Anri in the Upper House election,” one of them said.

Some of them said they could not return the money because they feared retribution from Katsuyuki, who served as special adviser to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

Hiroshi Tatemichi, an official aide to Anri, was given 300,000 yen while a 71-year-old clerical supervisor on Anri’s campaign staff was handed 600,000 yen, according to people who were interviewed by The Asahi Shimbun.

Tatemichi has been on trial on charges of violating the Public Offices Election Law by providing payments exceeding the legal limit to staff members who called out Anri’s name from campaign vehicles during the race.

Yoshiro Iriyama, the mayor of Otake in the prefecture, told The Asahi Shimbun that he refused to accept an envelope from Katsuyuki because he believed that it contained cash.

Shinji Kosaka, the mayor of Akiota in the prefecture, resigned last month after admitting to accepting 200,000 yen from the Kawais.

In the Upper House election, the LDP’s prefectural chapter intended to field veteran incumbent Kensei Mizote as the party’s sole candidate.

But the party headquarters in Tokyo set out to take both seats, allowing Anri to enter the race on the LDP ticket.

According to a source close to the LDP, the party headquarters since April has transferred a total of 150 million yen to a party branch represented by the Kawais, who are said to be also close to Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga.

The figure is 10 times the sum that Mizote had received from LDP headquarters.

In the election, a candidate backed by opposition parties garnered the most votes. Anri placed second, giving her a Diet seat for the first time.

Mizote lost his seat in the election.

Katsuyuki, who is from a constituency in Hiroshima Prefecture, became justice minister in September. But he resigned in late October after reports surfaced in a weekly magazine about possible election violations regarding payments to Anri’s campaign staff.