Hidetsugu Aneha

The arrest will come five months after revelations of the scandal surfaced in November and sent shock waves through condo buyers in earthquake-prone Japan. The buildings involved were found to be vulnerable to strong earthquakes and some of them have been demolished.

Police will also launch a criminal investigation of Susumu Ojima, 52, president of condominium developer Huser Ltd., and could arrest him as early as next month over a building constructed with quake-safety data faked by Aneha, sources said April 17.

The police are considering establishing criminal cases against about 10 other people, including a senior official of Kimura Construction Co., which built many of the defective structures, the sources said.

Aneha, 48, who is known to have fabricated such data for at least 98 buildings in 18 prefectures, was stripped of his license as an architect Dec. 8, and Kimura Construction, a midsize contractor based in Yatsushiro, Kumamoto Prefecture, went bankrupt in early December, half a month after the Land, Infrastructure and Transport Ministry announced Nov. 17 that one hotel and 20 condominiums in Tokyo, Chiba and Kanagawa prefectures may lack the strength to resist major earthquakes.

Aneha is suspected of violating the Building Standards Law and the Registered Architect Law, both of which carry only slight penalties for offenders -- of less than ¥500,000 and ¥300,000 in fines, respectively.

The Japan Times Weekly: April 22, 2006
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