Top Japanese executive found dead in Gurgaon apartment complex park

Gurgaon, Feb.21 (ANI): A top executive of Japan's scandal-ridden Olympus Corp, Tsutomu Omori, has been found dead in an apartment complex park in Gurgaon, Haryana.

According to newspaper reports, Omori, 49, who was head of the company's medical equipment business in India, was found hanging from a boundary wall by a gardener in the park on Monday.

After discovering the body, the gardener called security guards of the upscale residential complex.

Police arrived thereafter with other Olympus employees. They recovered two notes written in Japanese from Omori's apartment.

Reports said there were suicide notes written in Japanese, adding that there was no suggestion of a link to the Olympus scandal.

Police refused to comment on incident, saying the matter was still under investigation.

The Japanese company has been embroiled in an accounting scandal, after it fired its British chief executive Michael Woodford on October 14, 2011, prompting him to blow the whistle on the firm's dubious bookkeeping.

It was later revealed that a few executives kept the fraud going for 13 years in order to hide investment losses off Olympus's books.

Since then, Olympus has admitted to having used improper accounting tricks to conceal massive investment losses. The drop in its share prices has left it with a market capitalisation of just 4.5 billion dollars.

It has a 70 percent share of the global market for diagnostic endoscopes and has seen its net assets severely depleted by the scandal. It has admitted to having used improper accounting tricks to conceal massive investment losses under a scheme that began in the 1990s.

Law enforcement agencies in Japan, Britain and the United States are investigating the scandal.

Still, Olympus is unlikely to respond anytime soon to approaches from other companies. Olympus's president has said any decision on alliances should be made by a new management team that is due to chosen at a shareholders' meeting in April. (ANI)