The Yorkshire Post (UK) reported that Japanese prosecutors raided offices of camera and medical equipment maker Olympus and the home of a former executive in a probe into a 1 billion yen ($1.6 billion) accounting scandal that has threatened the company’s survival.

Tokyo prosecutors, police and financial regulators have joined forces in a rare joint investigation of the company, which has admitted to hiding huge investment losses via questionable merger and acquisition deals and other accounting tricks stretching back over two decades, the paper said.

A panel of experts appointed by Olympus to probe the scandal said early this month that two senior former executives masterminded the scheme with the help of investment bankers. It also found that three ex-presidents, including Tsuyoshi Kikukawa who resigned in October over the scandal, had known about the cover-up.

Olympus last week filed five years of corrected accounts, plus overdue first-half results, meeting a Tokyo Stock Exchange deadline to avoid a humiliating delisting, but revealing a much-depleted balance sheet as it tries to put the scandal behind it.

In a related story, Bloomberg reported that Olympus was seeking to sell shares in the company to a strategic investor to raise $1.3 billion to replenish the hole left in its balance sheet from the accounting fraud.

To read the story posted by the Yorkshire Post: click here.

To read the Bloomberg story: click here.