The Asahi reports that Masatoshi Kurata (pictured above), a lower house member and senior internal affairs vice minister, used his position to pressure the Justice Ministry and Foreign Ministry into granting short-stay visas to Filipina hostesses. Kurata has denied involvement and thrown the blame onto a former aide:

“I don’t know why (my name) came up, but my former aide and others probably mentioned my name,” he said.

According to sources, Kurata contacted officials at the Foreign Ministry and the Justice Ministry on multiple occasions to “take care of the charity matter.”

The former aide said: “A supporter contacted Mr. Kurata, and he instructed me to look into the matter.

“While contacting the authorities, I devised a system that is not illegal. The recent incident came about because the pubs didn’t follow the system I created.”

The scheme involved convincing the Justice Ministry to grant short stay visas to women so that they could sing at charity concerts to raise money for earthquake victims. In reality, the women spent most of their time in Japan illegally working as hostesses at shady pubs.