On February 17, the Osaka District Prosecutor's Special Investigation Unit announced the re-arrest of Shigemiyoshi Moriya (59), a chief accountant of the Kyoto Prefectural Land Development Public Corporation, and his son Takuumi Moriya (29), who is an executive at a real estate company. They are suspected of embezzling 870 million yen from the corporation's accounts through a series of 155 transactions over the course of nine months, from May 2023 to February this year. The specific methods of the embezzlement involve transferring significant sums into five accounts connected to Shigemiyoshi.

The Land Development Public Corporation, fully funded by the prefecture, is responsible for acquiring and selling land for public projects. With only around 30 employees, Shigemiyoshi Moriya had been in charge of accounting since he was hired in April 2022. The investigation further revealed that in an attempt to conceal the embezzlement, he allegedly forged 25 copies of account balance certificates from the public corporation and submitted them to his superiors as if they were legitimate documents.

This incident follows a previous arrest on January 25, where the duo was implicated in another embezzlement case involving 8.1 million yen from the same public corporation. The ongoing investigation has included a search of the corporation's offices, indicating the systemic nature of the alleged financial misconduct and raising questions about oversight and controls within government-associated entities in Japan.