![\"\"](\"https:\/\/soranews24.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/04\/sb-1.jpg?w=640\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Investigators say city councilman was involved in monkey business<\/strong>.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n According to the Shimane Prefectural Police, on a June night in 2024, Kiyoshi Inata<\/strong> ventured out of his home in the town of Yonago<\/strong>, where he serves as a city councilman. Inata wasn\u2019t headed out to enjoy the warm air of an early summer\u2019s evening, though, but to have a clandestine meeting in a parking lot within the city limits.<\/p>\n As a member of the city council since 2010 who had been reelected multiple times, and who was even the council\u2019s chairman in 2022, Inata has considerable clout within the local administration, and according to the police, it was that influence that his counterpart at the meeting was looking to buy. At the meeting, the councilman allegedly accepted a bribe of one million yen (approximately US$6,500) in exchange for advancing a specific agenda within the city council<\/strong>. What was that agenda?<\/p>\n Reduce the number of monkeys at Yonago\u2019s Minatoyama Park<\/strong>.<\/p>\n \u25bc Video of Minatoyama Park<\/p>\n\n Although Minatoyama is a public park, the city contracts with a company called Yonago Public Park Partners Joint Venture for its management and maintenance of the park\u2019s facilities, which include a Japanese garden, a cherry blossom tree grove, and, yes, a monkey habitat<\/strong>. Naturally, the more monkeys the park has, the more it costs to take care of them, and investigators say that it was a representative of the company, looking to cut costs, who delivered the bribe<\/strong> to the 56-year-old Inata.<\/p>\n Records show that since the alleged date of the bribe, Inata has spoken at least twice at city council meetings about decreasing the number of monkeys at the park, once in September of 2024, saying\u2026<\/p>\n \u201cAren\u2019t there maybe too many monkeys? I\u2019ve been to the park many times, well maybe not so many, but recently I\u2019ve gone to see [the monkey habitat], and I don\u2019t think it\u2019s such a good environment. I mean, it\u2019s not like we can actually discuss the matter with the monkeys.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n \u2026and again in March of 2025\u2026<\/p>\n \u201cMoving on to other matters, I\u2019d like to make certain that we will reduce the number of monkeys, and in addition emphasize the option of abolishing the habitat within the park as a means to do so.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n \u25bc Video of Inata\u2019s council meeting remarks<\/p>\n\n On Tuesday, Inata was arrested on charges of accepting bribery by officers from Tottori\u2019s Prefectural Police Investigation Division 2<\/strong>, who also referred the representative of Yonago Public Park Partners Joint Venture, a Yonago resident in his 70s, to public prosecutors.<\/p>\n \u25bc It\u2019s unclear if the case falls under the jurisdiction of Investigation Division 2 because Division 1 handles more urgent matters than monkey-related bribery, or because the crime is so serious that it requires specialized expert knowledge.<\/p>\n In the time since Inata\u2019s calls to reduce the park\u2019s primate population, the number of monkeys in the facility has decreased from roughly 50 of the animals to 37 today. There have also been three incidents of monkeys escaping from the park since 2023<\/strong>. Inata mentioned the escapes in his remarks last year, citing them as a reason why the habitat should be shut down promptly, though in light of the bribery accusations it\u2019s hard not to wonder if maybe the facility\u2019s management was being purposely lax in keeping the enclosure securely locked in order to sway public opinion towards shutting it down entirely.<\/p>\n It\u2019s worth considering that reducing the size of the park\u2019s monkey population may not itself be a bad idea. If the management company truly is struggling financially to maintain the habitat, finding proper homes for them elsewhere, where they can receive the care they require, would give them longer, happier lives. However, it becomes harder to believe that someone\u2019s motivations are noble when their methods involve illegal cash handoffs under cover of darkness, and so hopefully the decision of what to do about the park\u2019s monkeys will now be made out of genuine concern for their welfare, not who can end up with more money in their pockets.<\/p>\n Source: Yomiuri Shimbun<\/a> via Itai News<\/a>, FNN Prime Online<\/a><\/em> Investigators say city councilman was involved in monkey business. According to the Shimane Prefectural Police, on a June night in 2024, Kiyoshi Inata ventured out of his home in the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5521","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rss"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5521","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5521"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5521\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5521"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5521"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5521"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/soranews24.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/04\/sb-2.jpg?w=640\")
<\/p>\n
\nTop image: Pakutaso<\/a><\/em>
\nInsert image: Pakutaso<\/a><\/em>
\n\u25cf Want to hear about SoraNews24\u2019s latest articles as soon as they\u2019re published? Follow us on Facebook<\/a> and Twitter<\/a>!<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"