NHK has learned that the largest faction of Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party is alleged to have pooled secret funds to pay members who exceeded their quotas in selling fundraising party tickets.

Sources say the funds are likely to amount to several hundred million yen, or several million dollars, in the five years until the end of last year.

Japan's political funds control law obliges political organizations to record in their funding reports the total revenue from fundraising parties they sponsor.

It has been known that some LDP factions have set quotas for their members to sell fundraising party tickets based on position or career.

The factions are also known to have compiled lists detailing how those who exceeded their quotas were paid the excess sum as kickbacks.

Informed sources say the faction, once led by late Prime Minister Abe Shinzo, apparently failed to report such kickbacks in its political funding reports. Party ticket sales over the quota should be listed as income and payments to lawmakers as expenditures.

The faction's funding reports show that ticket sales revenues amounted to about 658 million yen, or around 4.4 million dollars, from 2018 through 2022. But sources say the sum does not include the money paid to lawmakers as kickbacks. They also say the sum totals several million dollars.

Political groups of lawmakers who likely received such kickbacks are also suspected of underreporting the money.

Prosecutors in Tokyo are now interviewing accounting officials of the faction and others on a voluntary basis about the flow of money and how funding reports were made.