Japan ruling party MP arrested over fund scandal: media

Japanese prosecutors on Sunday made the first arrests in a funding scandal that forced Prime Minister Fumio Kishida to replace four ministers last month, local reports said.

Ruling party lawmaker Yoshitaka Ikeda, 57, was held on suspicion of violating the political funds control law, Japanese media outlets, including Jiji Press, reported.

Ikeda, whose 45-year-old secretary was also arrested, is suspected of receiving kickbacks of around 48 million yen ($330,000), the reports said.

Kishida last month sacked the top government spokesman, the trade minister and two other ministers over a failure to report political funds as required by law.

Sunday's arrests came after Tokyo public prosecutors raided offices belonging to the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) last month.

Ikeda, who was reportedly disaffiliated from the LDP following his arrest, belonged to the party's largest faction, previously headed by ex-premier Shinzo Abe, who was assassinated last year.

All four former ministers who were sacked last month also belonged to the same faction.

The kickbacks at the centre of the scandal allegedly went to party members who exceeded their ticket sales quotas for party fundraising events.

The prosecutors have reportedly been probing five of the six LDP factions over alleged unreported political funds by interviewing officials in charge of factions' accounts.

Kishida's poll ratings are the worst for any premier since the LDP returned to power in 2012, dragged down by voter anger about inflation, as well as his handling of a string of earlier scandals.

The arrest comes as the government scrambles to rescue survivors of a magnitude-7.5 New Year's Day earthquake in central Japan.

Neither the prosecutors nor LDP officials could be immediately reached to confirm the reports.