Tokyo, Japan - Tokyo police arrested Shigeru Sugiura, a leader of the AUM Shinrikyo cult which has been renamed Aleph, and two others on Thursday for allegedly dispatching group members to work at companies without official authorization.
Sugiura, 46, is among the cult's five-member leaders' group, called Seigoshi.
The employment security law prohibits persons from dispatching workers under their management to a different organization for employment, unless they receive permission from the health, labor and welfare minister.
Last month, the police raided 22 locations including AUM-related facilities and arrested some members in violation of the employment law.
Sugiura and others are suspected of sending dozens of cult members to private firms in Tokyo without official authorization from around 2001 through January this year. The companies are believed to have made salary payments totaling several hundred million yen.
The police were looking into the possibility that part of the income might have been used for AUM's operational funds.
AUM Shinrikyo, whose senior members were involved in a series of crimes including the fatal 1995 sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway system, renamed itself Aleph in January 2000.