Rurei Miura received “3.85 million yen solar consulting fee” from her husband’s company.

It was Rurei Miura who suggested that we celebrate.

One day in September 2008. As less than 10 employees sat at their computers, Rurei was arranging glasses for all of them on the table. He selects a bottle of Moët & Chandon or Dom Perignon from the refrigerator, uncorks it, and pours the delicately bubbling golden liquid into a glass. He then uncorks the bottle and pours the delicately bubbling golden liquid into a glass.

We’re going to celebrate with champagne,” he said.　Let’s celebrate with a glass of champagne.

The company is headed by Rurei’s husband, Kiyoshi Miura, and Rurei was there because it also serves as the office of the think tank “Wildcat Research Institute” (“Wildcat”), of which he is the president. Although Rurei ostensibly pretended that she had nothing to do with her husband’s company, the Tribay employees followed Rurei’s call and sipped their glasses.

On that day,” she said, “we were due to repay a loan we had taken out for a solar power generation project in Wakayama Prefecture. Tribay had received a loan of 1.5 billion yen from Tokyo-based leasing company J for the development costs. However, development had stalled and there was no way to repay the funds. People around him were watching to see ‘how he would get through this,’ but what Mr. Kiyoshi chose to do was ‘ignore it'” (source close to Mr. Kiyoshi).

Mr. Rurei’s comment at the beginning of this article was a blessing to her husband, who had thus escaped his immediate predicament.

Mr. Rurei used to say things like, ‘The one who borrows the money wins. She would be a poor borrower until she borrowed the money, but once she borrowed it, she would think, ‘If I don’t pay it back, the lender will be in trouble. I have heard a similar comment from Mr. Kiyoshi.

About two and a half years later, in March of this year, Mr. Kiyoshi was arrested and indicted by the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office on suspicion of business-related embezzlement amounting to 420 million yen due to financial troubles surrounding another solar power generation business. When the offices of Tribay were raided in January, Rurei, who had repeatedly spoken out in favor of solar power generation on TV programs and other media, was also pointed out for her involvement in the case and her husband’s business.

In an interview with the April issue of the monthly magazine Bungei Shunju, Rurei gave the following defense.

The reason why I have not spoken out against anything is because, first of all, I do not really know anything about the incident beyond the fact that there was trouble with the investor and that he was suspected of embezzlement. [I] myself was in no position to offer an opinion or make any kind of judgment.

Rurei was not in a position to be involved in the case, nor in the management or business of Tribay, but this time, this magazine obtained numerous internal documents and testimonies that contradict Rurei’s defense. What emerges from these documents are the actual management practices that call into question the ethical standards of Mr. and Mrs. Rurei, as well as the cozy relationship between the two companies.

The key to the story is the development of a solar power plant in Wakayama Prefecture (hereinafter referred to as “Wakayama Power Plant”), which was mentioned at the beginning of this report.

The Wakayama Power Plant is a mega solar power plant with an output of 47 megawatts (MW) planned for Hidakagawa Town, Wakayama Prefecture, which was developed in 2005 by Tribay and J Corp. by forming a separate company. According to the registry of the separate company, the representative member is Tribay and the executive member is Mr. Kiyoshi,” said a reporter from the society department of a national newspaper.

(A reporter from a national newspaper) Regarding the Wakayama power plant, Tribay concluded a contract on September 4, 2008. This is indicated in a two-page A4-size document titled “Consulting Agreement for the Development of Solar Power Generation Business. Article 1 of the agreement reads as follows

TRIBAY CAPITAL (hereinafter abbreviated) requests Wildcat Research Institute, Inc. (hereinafter abbreviated) to provide consulting services in connection with the development of the solar power plant (hereinafter abbreviated) indicated below, and Wildcat Research Institute, Inc. is contracted to do so.

Wildcat Research Institute, Inc. is a think tank headed by the aforementioned Mr. Rurei. Although there is a typographical error, the document indicates that a consulting contract regarding the Wakayama Power Plant was signed between Tribay and Wildcat. The contract amount was 3.85 million yen (including tax), and we also obtained invoices supporting this.

In other words, Mr. Kiyoshi and Mr. Rurei were also business partners who shared interests through Tribay’s business. On the other hand, the aforementioned source pointed out the following.

Even some time after the consulting contract was concluded, there is no evidence that any reports or other deliverables were submitted to Tribay from the Wildcat side. Therefore, we do not even know how the 3,850,000 yen that was paid for the consulting contract was used. Some people involved with Tribay are heard to rumors that ‘such a contract may have been signed in order to give Rurei free money to spend freely.

The dubious nature of the situation can be seen through the invoice itself. The creation date in the upper right corner of the document is “September 1, 2020,” which is earlier than the date of the consulting contract, September 4. The wildcat side is seeking compensation for work that should not have been performed at that point in time.

The contract was never really in existence to begin with, so neither Tribay nor Wildcat had any idea of properly documenting the contract. In many cases, the documents are created after the money has actually moved. Therefore, it is not surprising that careless mistakes like this occur.

Part 2: “Unsecured on three separate occasions…35 million yen in money flowed from the company of the arrested husband to Rurei Miura’s company! Continued in the next section.

Interview and text by Naoyuki Miyashita (nonfiction writer)
naoyukimiyashita@pm.me