Three dark-suited men jumped from a car outside a Tokyo hospital last week and disappeared into the building. When they emerged, district prosecutors had arrested silver-haired Hisashi Shinto, 78, the powerful former chairman of Nippon Telegraph & Telephone. Within days, Takashi Kato, a former Vice Minister of Labor, was also taken into custody by authorities.
The detentions marked a fresh turn in the Recruit scandal, the spreading stock-for-influence deal that has already claimed three Cabinet ministers in the government of Prime Minister Noboru Takeshita. Shinto stands accused of taking $70,000 in bribes in the form of stock profits from heavily discounted...
To continue reading:
or
Log-In
