Japan investigates G8 'taxi scam'

Diplomats allegedly filed false expenses for dignitaries

Japanese police are investigating senior officials for allegedly pocketing thousands of dollars in taxi bills during last years' G8 summit, local media report.

In what could be another embarrassment for the scandal-ridden Foreign Ministry, the probe is reported to centre on the men who hired limousines for the dignitaries attending the summit, on the southern island of Okinawa.

Police believe they filed expenses for more cars than were actually used, and grabbed the extra cash - 12m yen ($96,760).

The police are investigating, among others, a 45-year-old bureaucrat at the Economic Affairs Bureau, who was in charge of summit logistics.

No comment

It is alleged that he got a taxi company to pad a bill for charter contracts, Kyodo news agency said.

Foreign Minister Makiko Tanaka declined to comment on the report.

Matsuo: Sacked earlier this year for corruption

Another former diplomat was arrested earlier this year, accused of siphoning off millions of dollars worth of public funds to finance a jet-set lifestyle.

Senior diplomat Katsutoshi Matsuo, 55, was arrested in March for allegedly siphoning off 420m yen from a fund for official foreign trips.

Domestic media said he bought more than a dozen racehorses, as well as golf club memberships and a luxury apartment in Tokyo.

On Friday Mie prefecture governor Masayasu Kitagawa urged the Foreign Ministry to heed growing public calls to disclose its use of such classified diplomatic funds.