{"id":2309,"date":"2020-01-14T11:57:22","date_gmt":"2020-01-14T11:57:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/?p=2309"},"modified":"2026-04-24T08:56:57","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T11:56:57","slug":"akimoto-arrest-warrant-casino-bribe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/akimoto-arrest-warrant-casino-bribe","title":{"rendered":"Japan: new arrest warrant issued over casino bribes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

New arrest warrant issued for lawmaker Tsukasa Akimoto relating to casino bribery allegations that emerged last month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Japan.- Tusaka Akimoto, the Japanese lawmaker accused of receiving casino bribes, is expected to be subject to an arrest warrant today. The Tokyo District Public Prosecutor\u2019s Office\u2019s special investigation team has alleged that Akimoto received over \u20ac16k in cash bribes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The investigation team said that Akimoto received bribes from online gambling operator 500.com in exchange of publicly speaking in favour of its proposed casino project. The firm was hoping to participate in the construction of a casino in Hokkaido and asked the lawmaker to deliver a speech at a related symposium in Naha, the Japan Times reported.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The initial payment was \u20ac4k but after the firm learned that Akimoto would be assigned to the post of Cabinet Office State Minister in charge of the push to launch integrated resorts in the country, it raised the value of the bribe to \u20ac16k. The firm also paid the costs of a trip to Shenzhen to visit its head office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Casino Regulatory Commission hosts first meeting<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The Casino Regulatory Commission of Japan kicked off its\u00a0first meeting<\/em><\/strong><\/a>\u00a0on Friday where it started discussions around the rules that will regulate operations in the country’s new casino industry. The meeting came a few weeks after a bribery scandal related to integrated resorts in the territory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Commission, which is affiliated to the Cabinet Office, was established early last week and is set to work on drawing up regulations on resort operators as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Michio Kitamura, former Chief of the Fukuoka High Public Prosecutor\u2019s Office and Head of the Regulatory Commission, said that the new body discussed rules to regulate casino operations. \u201cThe members of the Commission and staff of its secretariat will unite and work with a sense of urgency to build trust with the public over casino business,\u201d he said after the meeting.
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

New arrest warrant issued for lawmaker Tsukasa Akimoto relating to casino bribery allegations that emerged last month.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2311,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"is_press_release":false,"is_interview":false,"is_opinion":false,"focusai_summary":"A new arrest warrant has been issued for Japanese lawmaker Tsukasa Akimoto concerning alleged bribery from online gambling operator 500.com, linked to integrated resort (IR) development. Concurrently, Japan's Casino Regulatory Commission held its inaugural meeting to establish operational rules for the nascent casino industry amidst this high-profile scandal.","focusai_entities":"Tsukasa Akimoto, 500.com, Tokyo District Public Prosecutor\u2019s Office, Casino Regulatory Commission, Cabinet Office, Michio Kitamura","focusai_location":"Japan, Hokkaido, Naha, Shenzhen","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (0.9), regulator (1.0), compliance_legal (1.0), operator_casino (0.9), investor_analyst (0.9), supplier_vendor (0.7), journalist_researcher (1.0)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"IR Development Impact?","query":"What are the projected long-term implications of this bribery scandal on the timeline and foreign investment appeal for Japan's integrated resort development?"},{"label":"Regulatory Commission Mandate?","query":"How will the Casino Regulatory Commission's initial governance frameworks and enforcement priorities be shaped by the ongoing Akimoto bribery allegations?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[160,16338,439],"tags":[5849,29,5343,470],"class_list":["post-2309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-east-asia-news","category-legal-news","tag-bribe","tag-casino","tag-corruption","tag-japan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2309"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2309\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2320,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2309\/revisions\/2320"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2311"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}