The man called the “mastermind behind the incident” in the shooting death of the president of Gyoza no Ohsho is now being investigated.

The company was hijacked.

Nine years after the incident, the Kyoto Prefectural Police have managed to arrest the perpetrators, but of course, their ultimate goal is to reveal the “mastermind.

On October 28, the day Yukio Tanaka, 56, was arrested, the chief of the Kyoto Prefectural Police’s Criminal Investigation Department held a press conference, and the first thing they announced was an investigation into the “opaque transactions” that Osho had conducted in the past. In fact, on the following day, October 29, the alleged counterparty to the transactions was interviewed voluntarily.

The “opaque transactions” referred to by the police were the outflow of funds to Mr. X, a golf course owner in Fukuoka (in his late 70s), who has close ties with the founding family of Ohsho. In March 2004, more than two years after President Takayuki Daito (then 72) was shot and killed, Ohsho’s third-party committee released a 93-page investigation report. The report stated that approximately 26 billion yen had flowed out of Ohsho to Mr. X, of which approximately 17 billion yen was unaccounted for,” said a reporter from a national newspaper.

Mr. X, who has been involved in the real estate business and golf course management, is known as the half-brother of a major figure in the Buraku Liberation League and is said to be the last guardian of Hibari Misora, who was in financial trouble. He is said to have made the acquaintance of Asao Kato, the founder of the company, in the late 1970s, and since then, Mr. X has helped resolve problems that arose between anti-social organizations and others and Ohsho.

Because of his close relationship with Osho, Mr. X is once again in the spotlight following the arrest of the perpetrator. What kind of life is he leading now, and what does he think? There were reports that Tanaka had closed his company and sold his house a few months before his arrest, and there were whispers that he had “fled. ……

In one case involving a golf course in Fukuoka, Mr. X claims, ‘I was defrauded and my company was taken over. It seems that he sold his house for financial reasons and is living in Fukuoka normally” (a person related to Osho).

Even before the arrest of the perpetrator of this case, Mr. X was frequently interviewed by the police. In early April 2002, five months after the incident, he was interviewed by the Kyoto Prefectural Police’s Investigation Division 1, and in January 2004, his house was searched on suspicion of murder. In January 2004, his house was searched on suspicion of murder.

An acquaintance of Mr. X said, “He has been interviewed often.

He complained, “Every time the person in charge of the investigation (of the Kyoto Prefectural Police) changed, a detective would come to interview him again, wanting to start from the beginning. In response to the interviews, Mr. X has consistently insisted that he is absolutely innocent.

Can the trial be maintained?

Then, where is the real “mastermind”? Mr. X, who had a close relationship with the founding family of Ohsho, is said to have said something like this.

Around 2005, Osho began to expand into Dalian, China, and I heard that the executives who went there from Japan had a big problem with the local Chinese people.

He also said that a vendor who was cut off from business by Osho committed suicide.

Of course, the veracity of these testimonies is unknown, but it also seems to be true that the future of the investigation into Mr. X as the “mastermind” is grim.

The Kyoto Prefectural Police and Fukuoka Prefectural Police have set up a joint task force, but there is a considerable difference in temperature between the two. The Kyoto Prefectural Police have not given up on Mr. X’s ‘mastermind theory,’ while the Fukuoka Prefectural Police believe it will be very difficult to find new evidence through interviews with Mr. X. They have done a lot in the nine years since the incident,” said an investigator from the Fukuoka Prefectural Police.

So what will be the focus of the investigation in the future? Former Kanagawa Prefectural Police detective and crime journalist Taihei Ogawa says, “I don’t think there are any lies in the announcements so far.

I don’t think there is any lie in what they have said so far, but the police are not going to open up all the cards they have. A cigarette butt was found at the scene, and two years after the incident, DNA left on it was found to be a match for Tanaka. However, this only means that a Kudo-kai gang leader was at the scene. Perhaps the police have conclusive evidence linking the person who dumped the cigarette butt to be the perpetrator. Although this is unconfirmed information, it is also reported that DNA of the suspect Tanaka was detected on the handlebars of the motorcycle used by the perpetrator in his escape, in addition to the nitrous smoke reaction. In any case, the police arrested him because they could prove the crime. The evidence will be revealed at the trial.

The investigation is proceeding from both sides, the perpetrators and the mastermind. The “Gyoza no Ousho President Shooting Incident” was thought to be unsolved. Will the day ever come when the full story will be revealed?

From the November 18, 2022 issue of FRIDAY