Mail Fraud Arrests

A brief¹ followup to my earlier posts about the large-scale mail fraud case that's been uncovered this spring: The fake disability group set up to make use of discounted mail rates needed certification from the ministry of health, labour and welfare. They got this certification from a director-general at the ministry in 2004, and said director-general has now been arrested and both the ministry offices and home searched.

As MTC points out so eloquently, you do not arrest high-ranking officials and search the ministry unless you have a fairly solid case. Or if the prosecutors really have jumped the gun the backlash couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of people. The lawmaker that leaned on the ministry to certify the organization is as yet unnamed, but one of the two parties is going to have a nice little scandal to throw into the election campaign in a couple of months, depending on which party the offending diet member belongs to. Amazingly, it's actually not illegal for politicians to interfere directly in individual cases here, but the fallout should be plenty effective anyway. Wouldn't it be interesting if it turned out to be, say, a senior New Komeito member...

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#1 I'm writing up something for work right now, which makes writing for the blog less than ideal as a diversion. Don't expect long, windong posts for the next week or so.