Photo/Illutration Top officials and Cabinet ministers belonging to the Abe faction in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party are introduced at a May 2023 fund-raising party. (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

The “slush fund” of the Abe faction in the ruling party ballooned to about 500 million yen ($3.4 million), and most faction members received kickbacks from the accumulated money, investigative sources said.

Earlier reports said the size of the slush fund grew to more than 100 million yen over the past five years.

Investigators with the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office are looking into the dodgy handling of money raised through fund-raising parties by the faction once led by former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

The faction, the largest in the Liberal Democratic Party, and several of its members are suspected of failing to report income and expenditures concerning the slush fund.

Sources said prosecutors are considering filing charges against the Abe faction, given the size of the slush fund and the group’s apparent long-term coordinated effort to accumulate the funds and return the money to faction members.

According to sources, Abe faction members were given quotas to fill for ticket purchases to its fund-raising parties based on their standing in the party.

Each ticket cost 20,000 yen.

The Abe faction’s political fund reports have listed such ticket purchases, but they did not include amounts that went beyond the quota for each faction member, the sources said.

The extra money was placed in the slush fund and was eventually paid back to the member, they said.

The kickbacks were not reported as expenditures by the Abe faction nor as income by the faction members, according to the investigative sources.

The faction could face a possible charge of failing to report 1 billion yen in its fund reports: 500 million yen in the slush fund as income and 500 million in kickbacks as expenditures.

The faction members received between several tens of thousands of yen and 50 million yen.

Because of the large discrepancy, sources said prosecutors were still trying to decide the extent to which faction members would be held accountable.

The sources said at least 10 faction members received 10 million yen or more in kickbacks, including Seiko Hashimoto, an Upper House member who chaired the Tokyo Olympics organizing committee.

They said Hashimoto received 20 million yen over the five-year period.

Six top members of the Abe faction received between 1 million yen and 10 million yen each, the sources said.

They are: Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno; Koichi Hagiuda, LDP policy chief; Yasutoshi Nishimura, economy minister; Tsuyoshi Takagi, chairman of the LDP’s Diet Affairs Committee; Hiroshige Seko, secretary-general of the LDP’s Upper House caucus; and Ryu Shionoya, current leader of the Abe faction.

Upper House member Yasutada Ono is believed to have received 50 million yen, the largest amount among Abe faction members.

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