Olympus Tokyo HQ raided as camera makers face scandal
The Tokyo offices of camera makers and medical suppliers Olympus have been raided by Japanese prosecutors amidst allegations of an accounting scandal.
Part of an ongoing investigation, accounting discrepancies were brought to public attention by the company’s former chief executive Michael Woodford, following his being fired.
Olympus have admitted to hiding $1.5bn (£968m) of losses over the course of the past two years, revaluing their net assets down from 225 billion yen to just 46 billion yen. The company also declared losses over the six months leading to the end of September to be 32.3bn yen (£267m).
“I would suspect that any documents needed by the prosecutors could have been just requested for and delivered by Olympus,” Martin Schulz of Fujitsu Research Institute told the BBC.
“But the fact their offices have been raided seems to indicate that there are new developments in the investigation that might add a new twist to the story.”
We’ll bring you more on this story as the details are revealed.
