EXCLUSIVE: Arrested IT Firm Head Allegedly Tried to Conceal His Crime

Tokyo, April 18 (Jiji Press)–The president of an information technology company in Tokyo who has been arrested for allegedly abandoning the body of an executive of the firm told police last October that he was unable to contact the senior official, Jiji Press learned Saturday. It was also found that the company head, Katsuya Mizuguchi, 49, bought an air freshener around the time of the alleged body abandonment. Tokyo’s Metropolitan Police Department suspects that Mizuguchi took the actions to prevent his alleged crime from coming to be known, investigative sources said. The MPD arrested Mizuguchi on Friday for allegedly abandoning the body of a man believed to be the male executive in his 50s by removing it from the company’s office in the Akasaka district of Minato Ward in the Japanese capital around Oct. 5-6. Mizuguchi’s explanation about the executive came shortly after the suspected body abandonment, the sources said. The company executive went missing after Sept. 28 last year, and a female acquaintance consulted the MPD’s Azabu police station in the ward Oct. 10, reporting that she was unable to contact the man. Soon after this, police asked Mizuguchi about the executive, and he responded that he also lost contact with the official and was therefore “in trouble” concerning procedural matters, the sources said. Between the disappearance of the executive late last September and the alleged abandonment of the body around Oct. 5-6, Mizuguchi purchased blue plastic sheets and an air freshener. The police suspect that the body was moved out of the company’s Akasaka office after being kept there for a certain period. While the body has not been found yet, bloodstains of the executive were discovered in some places of the office. The executive is highly likely to have died because there are no records of the man traveling abroad or his money being used since he went missing, according to the sources. The Tokyo police are speeding up work to find the executive’s body. On Saturday, about 20 investigators searched areas around Otarumi Pass, which Mizuguchi is believed to have visited. Two police dogs were also mobilized. Otarumi Pass is located on the border of Tokyo’s Hachioji and the city of Sagamihara, Kanagawa Prefecture. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]