Japan ruling party lawmaker office raided over casino-linked scandal

Thursday 19th December 2019

TOKYO (Kyodo) -- Japanese prosecutors on Thursday raided the constituency office of a ruling party lawmaker over his alleged ties with a Chinese company interested in joining a casino project that is suspected of violating the foreign exchange law.

The lawmaker, Tsukasa Akimoto, a House of Representatives member of the Liberal Democratic Party, which is headed by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, is known as a promoter of casino resorts.

Akimoto was in charge of a so-called integrated resort project involving a large hotel and conference facilities in addition to a casino from August 2017 to October 2018 as a senior vice minister at the Cabinet Office.