Photo/Illutration Komeito member Kiyohiko Toyama announces his resignation from the Lower House on Feb. 1. (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

A former lawmaker with junior coalition partner, Komeito, and an aide to a different former lawmaker of the same party, along with two other people, were indicted on Dec. 28 on charges of illegally arranging government-backed loans. 

The investigative team from the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office indicted Kiyohiko Toyama, 52, a former Lower House member who formerly wielded major influence in the Finance Ministry, without arrest for violating the Money Lending Control Law.

Also indicted on the same charges without arrest were Akira Shibuya, 61, a former policy aide to former Komeito Lower House member Masataka Ota, and two advisers with Techno System Co., a Yokohama-based company related to the solar power industry.

According to investigative sources, all four have admitted to the charges and their involvement in the payment or receipt of money.

Toyama released a statement through a lawyer and said, “I have solemnly accepted the situation and reflected on it seriously. I earnestly apologize to people as an individual who used to hold public office. I will also sincerely respond to a trial in the future.”

Shibuya also issued a statement through his lawyer and apologized.

The indicted Techno System advisers were Atsushi Maki, 74, and Yutaka Kawashima, 78.

According to the prosecutors office and other sources, Toyama on his own brokered a total of 82 loans, including special ones, which the Japan Finance Corp. provides to businesses that have suffered financially because of the novel coronavirus, from March 2020 to June 2021.

Toyama also conspired with Maki and illegally arranged a total of 29 loans from April 2020 to January 2021.

Toyama received about 10 million yen ($87,000) as rewards.

Toyama was a vice minister of the Finance Ministry, which holds jurisdiction over Japan Finance, from September 2019 to September 2020.

Shibuya and Kawashima also are accused of conspiring together on a total of 87 loans without registering themselves as a money lender as required by law from June 2019 and April 2021.

Shibuya received about 10 million yen as rewards.

Toyama told a company through two of his public aides about a person who was in charge of the loans at a Japan Finance branch in an area where the company is located.

Prosecutors investigated these two former aides on suspicion they assisted in violating the Money Lending Control Law.

But they did not indict them.

Toyama resigned from his Diet seat in February this year after it was revealed that he went to a club in Tokyo’s Ginza district during a state of emergency.

Keiichi Ishii, Komeito secretary-general, released a statement criticizing Toyama for his involvement in the loan scandal. 

“It is an impermissible thing to do as a lawmaker of Komeito and it is very regrettable," he said in the statement. 

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