Photo/Illutration Investigators from the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office enter the Abe faction’s office in Tokyo’s Chiyoda Ward on Dec. 19. (Hikaru Uchida)

The Abe faction in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party returned all of the money collected by Upper House members for tickets to fund-raising parties when they were up for re-election, investigative sources said.

The money was apparently given back to the ticket sellers to help them finance their election campaigns, the sources said.

Members of the Abe faction, formally called Seiwa Seisaku Kenkyukai, were apparently assigned quotas for sales of fund-raising party tickets. The proceeds were submitted to the faction, and amounts that exceeded the quotas were returned to the faction members, the sources said.

The Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office’s Special Investigation Department searched the Abe faction’s office on Dec. 19 over suspicions that above-quota funds totaling about 500 million yen ($3.5 million) from 2018 to 2022 were not listed in the political fund reports of the faction or its lawmakers.

The faction, however, waived the sales quotas for Upper House members who were seeking re-election, and all of the money they collected for fund-raising party tickets was returned to them, according to the sources.

Upper House members are elected to six-year terms, and half of them are up for re-election every three years.

A source close to the Abe faction told The Asahi Shimbun that the special measure for Upper House members was used because “elections cost money.”

Because of the statute of limitations, investigators can apply the Political Fund Control Law for unreported funds only from the 2018-to-2022 period.

During this period, the amount of returned money ballooned for Upper House members up for re-election in 2019, the sources said.

Party ticket buyers can pay the lawmaker’s office, but all proceeds, in general, end up with faction accountants.

However, during election years, some Upper House members did not give any ticket-sales funds to the faction, based on the special measure, the sources said.

The Abe faction did not have a similar special measure for Lower House members because of the irregular schedule for elections of that Diet chamber, according to the sources. A snap Lower House election can be called whenever a prime minister dissolves that chamber.

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