Photo/Illutration Kinuko Iwamoto is arrested and transported to Tokyo's Metropolitan Police Department on Jan. 13. (Hikaru Uchida)

A fired chancellor of Tokyo Women’s Medical University was arrested on Jan. 13 on suspicion of arranging improper payments exceeding 100 million yen ($635,000) to a construction company president, The Asahi Shimbun learned.

Kinuko Iwamoto, 78, who lives in Tokyo’s Edogawa Ward, is accused of breach of trust that caused financial damage to the university located in Shinjuku Ward.

The payments totaling about 117 million yen were made from July 2018 to February 2020 as “business compensation” in connection with construction of new school buildings, investigative sources said.

Police believe that Iwamoto ordered the university to make the payments to the construction company chief, who received the funds and returned part of the total to Iwamoto, the sources said.

The man was paid for his services as a “construction adviser,” in addition to his salary, over construction of two new school buildings--the Yayoi memorial education building and the Tomoe research and education building.

In March 2024, the Metropolitan Police Department searched more than a dozen locations, including the university campus and Iwamoto’s home, in connection with a wider investigation concerning the case. The university set up a third-party investigative committee in response.

According to the committee’s report, the university hired the construction company president as a first-class architect in 2016 to erect the new school buildings and oversee seismic reinforcement of hospital wards.

The report noted that payments of the related fees were formally approved by the board of directors and others without determining the basis for the amount or the nature of the work.

Some of the work included construction projects for which the man played only a minor role, the report said.

In the searches last March, police suspected a former employee of the Shiseikai Association, a university alumni organization, had conspired with a former Shiseikai administrative director to receive a salary of about 20 million yen from Shiseikai despite doing no actual work.

The third-party committee’s report pointed out that Iwamoto was believed to have given excessive compensation to her close associates. She was also suspected of repeatedly making improper payments to companies controlled by her close associates, and that a portion of the money was returned to her.

The committee blamed Iwamoto and the board of directors for creating a “one-power system” that led to these problems.

In addition, the committee accused Iwamoto of “having a strong attachment to money” and criticized her “questionable qualifications as the university chancellor.”

Following the release of the report, Iwamoto was fired from the position in August 2024.

Following the arrest of Iwamoto, Chancellor Osamu Shimizu said at a news conference on Jan. 13 that the school “takes this matter very seriously.”

He bowed and said, “I deeply apologize to all stakeholders.”

Shimizu, who assumed the position of chancellor in December after Iwamoto was dismissed, said the university will steadily implement measures to prevent a recurrence.

“Based on the facts revealed in the investigation, (the university) will pursue responsibility as necessary to recover the damage suffered by (the corporation that operates the university),” he said.

Iwamoto graduated from the university in 1973. She was appointed vice chancellor in 2014 and chancellor in 2019. She also served as head of Shiseikai from 2013 to April 2023.

(This article was written by Tabito Fukutomi and Arata Mitsui.)

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