Tokyo police have arrested a tax bureau official and six others on suspicion of fraud for illegally receiving government subsidies for businesses affected by the coronavirus pandemic.

They include 24-year-old Tsukamoto Kohei, an employee at the Tokyo Regional Taxation Bureau, his former colleague and a former securities firm employee. They are all in their 20s.

Investigators say they applied for government subsidies in 2020, falsely claiming they were sole proprietors whose revenues had plunged due to the pandemic.

They allegedly used the Line messenger app to instruct university students and other youths how to fraudulently obtain the subsidies.

Tsukamoto and the six others are suspected of buying crypto-assets with the money they received.

Tokyo police have sent papers to prosecutors on seven people, including university and high school students, whose names were used for the applications.

Investigators say Tsukamoto remains silent, but at least one of the arrested has admitted to instructing about 200 people to make false applications.

Tokyo police suspect that Tsukamoto and his associates are members of the same investment group, and that they illegally obtained the equivalent of more than 1.5 million dollars.