A former SoftBank Corp. employee who has been arrested for allegedly taking proprietary information from the major Japanese phone carrier was aware that he might be providing it to Russian spies, investigative sources said Sunday.
The police believe he provided SoftBank corporate secrets multiple times to two officials at
"I had thought that they might be spies," one of the sources quoted Araki, who was fired by SoftBank in mid-December, as saying.
Araki was first approached by the Russian official in his 40s several years ago and is believed to have been treated to wining and dining, in addition to receiving cash from him, the sources said.
The official, who returned to
The officials are believed to be members of
The unit of
The officials did not disclose to Araki, a former executive at the company's mobile information technology promoting department, that they were from
The way of approaching him "accidentally on purpose" is a typical technique used by Russian spies, they said.
Through
==Kyodo
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