Osaka Toyota employees arrested for falsifying sales records

Police arrested a former senior official and three current employees of Osaka Toyota Motor Corp, on Tuesday on suspicion of falsifying sales records of used passenger cars in an attempt to pad sales performances. All of them have admitted to the charges, saying it was to boost sales performances.

According to investigators, the four filed fake sales dossiers of four used passenger cars with the transport ministry's local bureau between February 2002 and April 2005. The vehicles were actually owned by Osaka Toyota but the four submitted the dossiers to make it appear that the vehicles were sold to their relatives, and to have the bureau record the false ownership data in its computer systems. Such procedures were necessary to have the false sales recognized as part of their real sales performances, police said.