Japan detains former SoftBank employee on suspicion of espionage

Recently a former employee of SoftBank Corp. was reportedly arrested for allegedly providing the sensitive information to Russian officials at their representative office at Tokyo. The Metropolitan Police Department’s Public Safety Bureau claims that they believe the Russian officials to be engaged in espionage.

Russian attempts at 'espionage'

Police have claimed that the suspect, 48-year-old Yotaka Araki illegally accessed the computer servers of the major phone carrier on February 19, 2019. They believe that Araki obtained two sets of trade secrets from the server. It is believed that he could have possibly provided the Russian officials with much more trade secret.

According to reports, Araki has already confessed to the theft of the sensitive information claiming that he did it for a little extra money. The police working with the Japanese Foreign Ministry has asked the Russian Embassy to present two Russian men for questioning in relation to the incident. The police suspect that one of the two individuals first made contact with Arake and then later passed of his contact to another official working in the Trade Mision and having diplomatic status.

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The company in a statement revealed that the information that was leaked related to manuals for mobile phone base stations and other communications facilities, Araki was fired from SoftBank mid-December last year.

SoftBank suffering losses

The Japanese giant SoftBank Group suffered an operating loss of $6.4 billion in the second quarter of 2019, it said in a statement, as investments in start-ups such as WeWork and Uber took a massive hit. In the three-month period ending September 30, operating losses hit a whopping 704.4 billion yen ($6.4 billion). 

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The firm said first-half operating losses from its Vision Fund and Delta Fund came to 572.6 billion yen, largely "due to a decrease in the fair values of investments including Uber and WeWork and its three affiliates". Net profit in the six months to September sank 49.8 per cent to 421.6 billion yen on an operating loss of 15.6 billion yen. The company did not publish its outlook for the year to March 2020, but uncertain roads lie ahead as shares in its key investments like Uber and Slack continue to slide.