Exclusive: Japan businessman paid $8.2 million by Tokyo Olympics bid lobbied figure at centre of French corruption probe

FILE PHOTO: The Tokyo Organizing Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games Tokyo 2020 Executive Board member Haruyuki Takahashi arrives at a Tokyo 2020 Executive Board Meeting in Tokyo, Japan March 30, 2020. REUTERS/Issei Kato/Pool/File Photo

TOKYO/PARIS (Reuters) - A businessman who received millions of dollars for his work on Tokyo's successful campaign to host the 2020 Olympics, which was postponed last week due to the coronavirus, said he played a key role in securing the support of a former Olympics powerbroker suspected by French prosecutors of taking bribes to help Japan's bid.

Haruyuki Takahashi, a former executive at the advertising agency Dentsu Inc, was paid $8.2 million (6.65 million pounds) by the committee that spearheaded Tokyo's bid for the 2020 Games, according to financial records reviewed by Reuters. Takahashi told Reuters his work included lobbying International Olympic Committee members like Lamine Diack, the ex-Olympics powerbroker, and that he gave Diack gifts, including digital cameras and a Seiko watch.