Yamaichi Executive Is Stabbed to Death

A Yamaichi Securities Co. executive was stabbed to death, and police were investigating whether the killing may be linked to a payoff scandal involving a racketeer. Koichiro Tarutani, 57, was manager of customer relations at Japan’s fourth-largest brokerage, which recently pledged to sever ties with organized crime. The stabbing came three days after the resignation of Yamaichi’s chairman, president and nine other executives as they took responsibility for the payoffs. The scandal has also led to the resignations and arrests of executives at Nomura Securities Co., Japan’s largest broker, and Dai-Ichi Kangyo Bank Ltd., its fourth-largest bank, and the suicide of a former Dai-Ichi Kangyo chairman. Police said Tarutani was stabbed at least three times on a street in western Tokyo and died shortly after being taken to a hospital. The brokerage is being investigated for allegedly paying admitted gangster Ryuichi Koike $690,000. Such gangsters, or sokaiya, extort money from companies by threatening to disrupt their shareholder meetings.