Tokyo, Oct 4 (EFE).- More than 1,000 Japanese companies and individuals, including Softbank founder and Chief Executive Office Son Masayoshi, appear in the so-called Pandora Papers, which leaked the secret fortunes and activities in tax havens of personalities worldwide.

According to the documents, the executive acquired a business jet toward 2014 through a company established in 2009 in the Cayman Islands, a British territory considered a tax haven.

Ownership of the aircraft has been transferred to a US trust company and Son pays fees when he uses it under a lease, which could reduce an individual's taxable income by paying those fees.

Softbank has denied Son used the rates in such a way and has said the Cayman company is a subsidiary of a Japanese company headed by Son and that the rental agreement does not constitute tax evasion, in statements to Kyodo news agency.

Takeo Hirata is among other Japanese names to appear in the more than 11.9 million confidential documents, leaked from 14 law firms dedicated to the creation of "offshore" entities and published by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.

Hirata was a special government adviser and headed the Japanese Cabinet Secretariat section in charge of promoting the Olympic and Paralympic Games in Tokyo since it was elected host city in 2013. He resigned in mid-August after years of accepting free golf lessons which would have cost $ 36,500.

Details about the Japanese entities and personalities involved in the most recent journalistic leak of this type, similar to that of the Panama Papers of 2016, were published by Japanese news agency Kyodo, a collaborator in the investigation carried out by the consortium.

The Pandora Papers said Hirata established a company in the British Virgin Islands in 2004 during his tenure as general secretary of the Japan Football Association. He liquidated it in 2008.

Hirata said he learned about the tax havens through negotiating partners he met when he worked in the soccer and oil sector, and claims he never moved the money.

Others named in the documents include former government adviser and technology venture capitalist George Hara, a business owner in the Virgin Islands; and Don Quijote discount store company founder Takao Yasuda.

The company announced in 2013 that Yasuda would sell its shares to a Singaporean company, but according to documents and other leaked materials consulted by Kyodo, the company is an asset management entity owned by Yasuda himself.

Corporate taxes and levies on stock dividend income are lower in Singapore, where Yasuda lives, than in Japan.

According to a Don Quijote spokesman, the company said the tax arrangement is within the law. EFE

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