Ex-Tokyo Games Official Arrested over Bid-Rigging

Tokyo, Feb. 8 (Jiji Press)--Japanese public prosecutors on Wednesday arrested Yasuo Mori, a former senior official of the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics organizing committee, on suspicion of playing a leading role in bid-rigging for contracts related to test events for the Tokyo Games, according to informed sources.

On Wednesday morning, the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office's special squad searched the house of the former deputy chief of the committee's department in charge of operating the Tokyo Games, suspecting that he, together with senior officials of advertising giant Dentsu Inc., prearranged winners for bidding for planning and planning assistance services for the test events in violation of the antimonopoly law.

Companies that won bids for planning the test events at respective competition venues were given negotiated contracts for operating the test events themselves and Tokyo Games competitions. The contracts were worth some 40 billion yen in total.

The special squad plans to work with the Fair Trade Commission to bring the whole truth to light.

Mori's arrest "is extremely regrettable," Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike told reporters. The governor said she asked a body that has taken over the organizing committee's operations to continue to fully cooperate in the investigation.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]