Ex-Tokyo Medical Univ. Chancellor Arrested for Breach of Trust

Tokyo, Jan. 13 (Jiji Press)--Japanese police arrested Kinuko Iwamoto, former chancellor of Tokyo Women's Medical University, on Monday on suspicion of breach of trust involving fictitious payments of construction consulting fees by the university.

Iwamoto, 78, is suspected of having the university pay a total of about 117 million yen to an architect in his 60s on 21 occasions between July 2018 and February 2020 for fictitious consulting work on the construction of a new campus building.

Tokyo's Metropolitan Police Department concluded that the architect did not provide consulting services over the project.

The police allege that Iwamoto, who had enormous power over matters related to the university at the time, had the money funneled back to herself for personal gain, people familiar with the investigation said.

The architect started working as a construction consultant to the university in April 2016 and initially received between 40,000 yen and 50,000 yen per day, according to people familiar with the matter.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]