Reuters exclusively reports Japan businessman paid $8.2 million by Tokyo Olympics bid lobbied figure at center of French corruption probe

Reuters exclusively reported that a businessman who received millions of dollars for his work on Tokyo’s successful campaign to host the 2020 Olympics played a key role in securing the support of a former Olympics powerbroker suspected by French prosecutors of taking bribes to help Japan’s bid. Haruyuki Takahashi, a former executive at the advertising agency Dentsu Inc, was paid $8.2 million by the committee that spearheaded Tokyo’s bid for the 2020 Games. Takahashi told Reuters his work included lobbying International Olympic Committee members like Lamine Diack, the ex-Olympics powerbroker now under investigation over bribery allegations, and that he gave Diack gifts, including digital cameras and a Seiko watch.