Photo/Illutration The Tokyo branch headquarters of junior coalition partner Komeito (Kazuyoshi Sako)

A former lawmaker with junior coalition partner Komeito is under investigation for whether he received illegal payments from individuals connected with a company involved in a shady loan brokerage venture.

According to investigative sources, Kiyohiko Toyama and his former aides are suspected of receiving several millions of yen in cash from a company official to introduce him to Japan Finance Corp. officials.

Japan Finance is a wholly owned government-lending institution that falls under the jurisdiction of the Finance Ministry. Toyama served as senior vice finance minister between September 2019 and September 2020.

Toyama resigned his Lower House seat in February after it came to light that he visited a nightclub in the posh Ginza district of Tokyo while the capital was under a COVID-19 state of emergency.

Investigators with the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office searched Toyama’s residence and his consulting firm office on Aug. 4, as well as the office of Lower House member Nobuhiro Yoshida, another Komeito member who now employs Toyama’s former aides.

If the money paid to Toyama and his aides was remuneration for introducing the Japan Finance officials, they could be considered co-conspirators in violating the Money Lending Business Law.

In response to questions from The Asahi Shimbun, Toyama said he never received remuneration, but admitted to introducing them to the officials in charge at Japan Finance.

According to sources, the illegal loan brokering was conducted by a former adviser to the Yokohama-based Techno System, a company involved in solar power generation.

The individual is suspected to have received a commission for brokering contracts between Japan Finance and companies that suffered declining sales due to the novel coronavirus pandemic. But there was no registration submitted to the government to allow for money lending operations, as required by law.

The former adviser knew Toyama from about seven to eight years ago. From about April 2020, the former adviser asked Toyama’s aides at the time to introduce officials at Japan Finance branches in the areas where companies seeking COVID-19 loans were located.

Those aides reached out to Japan Finance with inquiries on about 200 separate cases. The former adviser is suspected of handing over several millions of yen to those associated with Toyama.

Meanwhile, another investigation is also being conducted into another Komeito Lower House member, Masataka Ota, whose former policy aide received similar requests for introductions from another individual connected with Techno System.

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