OSAKA \u2013 Police arrested a former manager at Takenaka on Wednesday for suspected breach of trust involving a construction project for the Grand Ring, a symbol of last year\u2019s World Exposition in the city of Osaka.<\/p>\n
The Osaka Prefectural Police suspects Tatsumi Kawai, 61, of conspiring with a subcontractor to have it repeatedly overcharge for interior work at a temporary office between February 2025 and June 2025, resulting in \u00a513.69 million ($86,000) in damages for Takenaka, an Osaka-based general contractor.<\/p>\n
The suspect served as a site manager for expo construction and oversaw the Grand Ring project, effectively being in a position to be able to select subcontractors, according to the police and others. The overcharged funds are believed to have been used to remodel Kawai\u2019s home and for other purposes.<\/p>\n
The police have not disclosed whether the suspect has admitted the allegations.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, the police raided the company\u2019s head office as part of the investigation.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will fully cooperate with the investigation by the police and take strict measures after confirming the facts,\u201d Takenaka said in a statement following Kawai\u2019s arrest.<\/p>\n
The iconic ring-shaped roof structure, constructed at a total cost of \u00a534.4 billion, was recognized by Guinness World Records as the world\u2019s largest wooden structure. Of its 2-kilometer loop, the 700-meter western section was built by a joint venture including Takenaka.<\/p>\n
With about 200 meters of the northeastern section being preserved, the structure has been undergoing demolition work since the half-year event closed in October.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OSAKA \u2013 Police arrested a former manager at Takenaka on Wednesday for suspected breach of trust involving a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":76694,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[35189,82,8,994,85,49203],"class_list":["post-76693","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-osaka","tag-2025-osaka-expo","tag-construction-industry","tag-japan","tag-japanese-police","tag-osaka","tag-takenaka"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76693","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76693"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76693\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76694"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}