In the issue of January 25, 1997 of "World" magazine (www.worldmag.com ) a story appeared about on Asian money given as contribution to the Clinton-Gore campaigns (see Terry Eastland, "The Power of the Purse", "World", vol. 11, no. 33).
The story focuses on Mr. John Huang, President Clinton's specialized fundraiser in the Asian-American community, and noted among other incidents that:
"In May 1996, a fundraising dinner organized by Mr. Huang was held at the Sheraton Carlton Hotel in Washington, D.C. Yogesh Gandhi, a distant relative of Mahatma Gandhi, paid for his ticket and that of a friend, Dr. Hogen Fukunaga, with a $325,000 contribution. (At the dinner, Mr. Gandhi and Mr. Fukunaga presented Mr. Clinton the 1996 'Mahatma Gandhi World Peace Award.')
Mr. Fukunaga, leader of a Japanese religious sect known as Ho no Hana Sanpogyo, is a multimillionaire, while Mr. Gandhi, a naturalized American, is a man of little means, indeed a 'pauper,' according to papers filed in his recent divorce case. After The Los Angeles Times reported in October the details of Mr. Gandhi's lowly economic status, the DNC concluded that the $325,000 he had donated probably never belonged to him and returned 'his' money."
Although both the President and the DNC were probably unaware of criticism against Ho no Hana, this connection may now prove embarassing in the wake of the Japanese police raids against Ho no Hana in November 1999.

TOKYO, Dec. 2 (Kyodo) - The ''Ho-no-Hana Sampogyo'' cult, at the center of a major police probe, on Thursday denied that its collections from followers amounted to fraud.
The cult's guru, Hogen Fukunaga, issued a statement in reaction to Wednesday's police raids on its facilities and Fukunaga's home, saying, ''There is no reason for anyone to criticize Ho-no-Hana followers engaged in missionary work based on their deeply held beliefs.''
''Heaven never intended to have us commit fraud or conduct missionary work that is against the law,'' the 54-year-old guru said.
The Shizuoka prefectural government, meanwhile, decided Thursday to question a member of the group in connection with the cult's acquisition of a 2,200-square-meter plot of land in the capital city of Shizuoka, prefectural government officials said.
The land in question was initially bought in October 1995 by a Shizuoka construction firm that undertook construction of the cult's headquarters in Fuji in the Prefecture, the officials said.
The construction firm reported the purchase to the prefectural government.
However, the land was handed by the firm to the cult in September this year.
The Shizuoka government suspects the cult was the actual purchaser of the land and that it failed to report the transaction to the prefecture in violation of the Act for Planning the Utilization of the National Land, the officials said.
The prefectural government will summon the cult member in charge of the land acquisition Monday to explain the deal, they said.
A citizens group in Fuji on Thursday filed a request with the prefectural government asking it to take action against the cult. The petition said the cult ''has violated the land act in the past. We would like the Shizuoka government to take serious measures (against it).''
It was also learned Thursday that the cult has canceled an event that was to be the largest it has ever held, scheduled for Dec. 15 at the Pacifico Yokohama international convention center in Yokohama's ''Minato Mirai 21'' harbor area.
The cult requested cancellation Tuesday, a day before police raided cult facilities on suspicion of fraud.
According to the convention center, the cult on Oct. 27 booked the center's hall for three days beginning Dec. 14, with 8,000 people scheduled to take part in the annual event.
Sources close to the cult said the participation fee was set at 20,500 yen for cult members and 50,500 yen for nonmembers. The fee is considered a major source of revenue for the cult.
The Pacifico Yokohama said it plans to ask the cult to pay a 5 million yen cancellation fee.
Meanwhile, police sources said the cult systematically targeted people suffering from illnesses when recruiting followers.
A manual of the group lists some 120 university and general hospitals in Tokyo, Nagoya, Osaka and other major cities as ideal recruiting sites, describing the capacities and departments at the medical institutions, according to police investigations.
Police suspect the group took advantage of people suffering from illnesses, pressing them to pay large sums of money for purported alternative treatments, the sources said.
The Metropolitan Police Department and Shizuoka prefectural police on Wednesday raided offices and gathering places linked to the group on suspicion it swindled followers out of billions of yen as ''fees'' for supposed cures for serious illnesses.
The manual contains detailed instructions on how to recruit followers, such as approaching patients who go to see doctors in the mornings, the sources said. The manual also describes families and friends who visit inpatients in the afternoons as possible targets.
It also instructs members to distribute a book written by Fukunaga at no charge, the sources said. More than 10 million copies of the book have reportedly been distributed at hospitals and train stations or sold at bookstores.
In the book, Fukunaga says he was able to prolong the life of a terminally ill cancer patient and make a cancerous tumor disappear in another patient, but police have proved such claims to be false, sources said.

TOKYO, Dec. 1 (Kyodo) - The 54-year-old leader of the ''Ho-no-Hana Sampogyo'' religious group at the center of a mass fraud scandal, Hogen Fukunaga, is believed to have established the group to avenge himself on a different religious group he once belonged to.
Fukunaga was born in Yamaguchi, western Japan, in April 1945 and soon moved to Ube in Yamaguchi Prefecture, where he and his family endured wartime air raids.
According to Fukunaga's book, his father died at the front without getting the chance to see him and his older sister died at the age of 3.
He said he grew up in a storehouse-like home with his mother, now 79 and chief director of Ho-no-Hana Sampogyo, together with an other family comprised of a mother and two children.
''I was not happy in my childhood days,'' he recalled.
Fukunaga said his mother left him to live with relatives for several years when she went to Tokyo to study dressmaking.
Later, Fukunaga and his mother became followers of a new religious group based in the Chugoku area of western Japan.
''The religion's dogma resembles the Ho-no-Hana Sampogyo's,'' a Tokyo police investigator said.
After graduating from a part-time course at the Yamaguchi prefectural government-run Ube technical high school, Fukunaga left for Tokyo to find a job.
While working in the factory of a major electrical machinery maker in Kawasaki, southwest of Tokyo, and elsewhere, he graduated from the evening course of then Hosei University's junior college.
Fukunaga founded an electrical machinery company but it went bankrupt when he was 34, documents of his group say.
In around 1980, Fukunaga established the Ho-no-Hana Sampogyo, saying he had received a revelation telling him to help humans as the envoy of heaven after Christ and the Buddha.
A Fukunaga aide said, ''A religious group he once believed in left money to his discretion when the group attempted to enter into Tokyo, but he had business reversals and was expelled. He may have thought he would get his revenge.''
Wearing his hair straight back, about 190 centimeters tall and with a gruff voice, Fukunaga is said to have a charismatic presence.
Fukunaga, his wife and their son and sister, both elementary school students, live in a deluxe condominium in Tokyo's Shibuya Ward. He sometimes stays for extended periods in a suite at a high-class hotel in Tokyo, where one night's lodging costs 500,000 yen.
Fukunaga was also involved in supermarket, karaoke and various other ventures in recent years, but most of them ended in failure.

SHIZUOKA, Japan, Dec. 2 (Kyodo) - Four followers of the ''Ho-no-Hana Sampogyo'' religious group died while training at the cult's headquarters in Fuji, Shizuoka Prefecture, sources close to the local fire department said Thursday.
The four men who died are a 30-year-old in June 1994, a 40-year-old in July 1994, a 57-year-old from Iwata in Shizuoka Prefecture in April 1995, and a 62-year-old from Tokorozawa, Saitama Prefecture in August 1998, the sources said.
Of the four, two were dead by the time emergency staff arrived at the headquarters of the group, under investigation on suspicion of swindling followers out of billions of yen as ''fees'' for supposed cures for serious illnesses, they said.
Fuji fire department officials said they were called to the cult's head office for emergencies 12 times between 1993 and August 1998, according to the sources.
Sources said the family of the Iwata man plans to file a suit shortly with the Shizuoka District Court against the cult for some 55 million yen in damages, claiming the man fell to his death from the window of a second-floor bathroom during a five-day training session.
The cult, led by Hogen Fukunaga, allegedly tricked thousands of people into paying large sums of money to cure what it falsely claimed were serious illnesses or to conduct supposed alternative treatment for sicknesses.
Many also reportedly underwent expensive five-day training sessions at the headquarters after being told that they or their family members would suffer from cancer or other terminal illness unless they went through training.
A representative of the group's judicial affairs department said, ''I'm not sure about the details because the person in charge is not here, but I have never heard anything about four people dying while training.''
The Metropolitan Police Department and Shizuoka prefectural police on Wednesday raided offices and gathering places linked to the group and are trying to locate the group's leaders, including Fukunaga, to question them, according to police sources.
''Ho-no-Hana'' was founded by Fukunaga around 1980. In 1987, it was recognized as a religious group eligible for preferential tax treatment.

TOKYO, Dec. 2 (Kyodo) - The ''Ho-no-Hana Sampogyo'' cult, under investigation on suspicion of fraud, systematically targeted people suffering from illnesses when recruiting followers, police sources said Thursday.
A manual of the group lists some 120 university and general hospitals in Tokyo, Nagoya, Osaka and other major cities as ideal recruiting sites, describing the capacities and departments at the medical institutions, according to police investigations.
Police suspect the group, led by Hogen Fukunaga, took advantage of people suffering from illnesses, pressing them to pay large sums of money for purported alternative treatments, the sources said.
The Metropolitan Police Department and Shizuoka prefectural police on Wednesday raided offices and gathering places linked to the group on suspicion it swindled followers out of billions of yen as ''fees'' for supposed cures for serious illnesses.
The manual contains detailed instructions on how to recruit followers, such as approaching patients who go to see doctors in the mornings, the sources said. The manual also describes families and friends who visit inpatients in the afternoons as possible targets.
It also instructs members to distribute a book written by Fukunaga, 54, at no charge, the sources said. More than 10 million copies of the book have reportedly been distributed at hospitals and train stations or sold at bookstores.
In the book, Fukunaga says he was able to prolong the life of a terminally ill cancer patient and make a cancerous tumor disappear in another patient, but police have proved such claims to be false, sources said.
Yasumoto Hoshiyama, the group's No. 2 leader, admitted in April 1998 during a hearing for a civil suit at the Fukuoka District Court that the manual is an official document of ''Ho-no-Hana.''
Hoshiyama said then, ''It is our aim to help people who are suffering from illnesses. Since a hospital is a place where such people go, we naturally went to hospitals.''
Police are still trying to locate the group's leaders, including Fukunaga, to question them, sources said.
Wednesday's search of 74 locations, including the group's head office in Fuji, Shizuoka Prefecture, gathering places in nine prefectures and Fukunaga's residence in Tokyo's Shibuya Ward began around 7:30 a.m. and lasted until shortly after midnight.
Police confiscated at least 800 boxes of material and other items such as ornaments, hanging scrolls, and plastic bags containing shredded documents.
Fukunaga and other leaders are suspected of falsely diagnosing serious ailments such as cancer simply by examining the soles of people's feet and of claiming that payments of millions of yen would cure their illnesses.
Some 1,100 people nationwide have filed suits against the group, seeking a total of 5.4 billion yen in damages, according to the group.
The suspects allegedly defrauded some followers out of several million yen each by selling hanging scrolls, ornaments and other goods, warning the followers they would die young or go bankrupt if they did not purchase the items, the sources said.
The group has told courts hearing the suits that it collected a total of 61 billion yen from 30,000 followers.
''Ho-no-Hana'' was founded by Fukunaga around 1980. In 1987, it was recognized as a religious group eligible for preferential tax treatment by the prefectural government.
It has an estimated 2,000 regular followers and has gathering places in Tokyo, Shizuoka, Hokkaido, Chiba, Aichi, Ishikawa, Osaka, Hiroshima and Fukuoka prefectures.

FUJI, Shizuoka - Police raided the headquarters and other facilities of the shady religious cult Ho no Hana Sanpogyo on Wednesday. Investigators from the Metropolitan Police Department and the Shizuoka Prefectural Police conducted the crackdown on 70 cult facilities in Tokyo and eight other prefectures, police said. They were searched on suspicion that the cult swindled three housewives out of 22 million yen between November 1994 and the following June. The residence of the cult's guru, Hogen Fukunaga, in Tokyo's Shibuya-ku - an exclusive apartment with a rent of 2 million yen per month - was also searched, but his whereabouts and that of other senior cultists were unknown. Fukunaga claims to be able to cure or prevent any serious illness with his tengyo-riki, or heavenly powers. The women, whose names are being withheld to protect their privacy, have family members suffering from serious illnesses and sought help from Fukunaga, police said. "Sole-examinations," a Ho no Hana practice to diagnose people's illnesses or misfortunes in a similar fashion to palm reading, were conducted on the trio. During the readings, Fukunaga told the women that their family members would be cured only if they attended a five-day training session - for 2.25 million yen each. The guru, who claims that he is an oracle, had also said that the wives might suffer from cancer if they didn't attend the sessions. Subsequently, Fukunaga exploited the wives further by telling them that according to "the voice of heaven," they had to pay a hefty amount of money to "deliver" their souls, or console the spirit of a miscarried baby, investigators said. Police believe that Fukunaga and other high-ranking cult members cheated thousands of people by saying that the guru possessed supernatural healing power. Investigators also confirmed that claims of miraculous cures of terminal illnesses printed in the cult's book were all sham. Ho no Hana often distributed the book free around hospitals. Over 1,000 people nationwide have filed suits against Ho no Hana, seeking a total of 5.4 billion yen in damages for their experiences, which are similar to those of the three women. It was revealed during earlier court proceedings that a manual for examining the soles of the feet advised cult examiners to scare people by promptly concluding that they would suffer cancer, die young or go bankrupt. As a result, the cult was able to prey upon troubled people. They attended training sessions and bought scrolls or ornaments priced at millions of yen that supposedly brought fortunes to their buyers. A 68-year-old man from Funabashi, Chiba Prefecture, who paid 2.25 million yen to attend a training session in 1995, believed that the raids were long overdue.
The man, who wished to remain anonymous, said he was desperate to be free of lingering pains related to the aftereffects of an automobile accident.
After examining the soles of his feet, Fukunaga told the man that it was his "last chance" to relieve the pain and urged him to attend the session. "I thought the fee was too high, but for a sick person like me, his words were like a light at the end of a tunnel," the man said. He got the money by borrowing from his relatives and participated in the training, but it was all a waste as he still suffers from the pain. "[Ho no Hana] can't be stopped unless the police intervene," the man said.
Another alleged victim, a Saitama housewife in her 50s, also paid 1.2 million yen and underwent a five-day session six years ago. She said that she was in poor health back then, and was recommended by a Ho no Hana member to have her soles examined by Fukunaga. As soon as he looked at the woman's soles, the guru said "what a calamity" and bombarded her with words that convinced her the training was the only solution for her problems. "Looking back, I could laugh about it, but I felt I was cornered at that time," the woman said. But soon after that she was convinced that the cult was a con organization, because it told her she needed to buy a 3.33 million yen scroll that could purify the deeds of her ancestors for the past five generations.
However, a 58-year-old cult follower who arrived at the Fuji headquarters during the raid remained unmoved. "We have never committed any questionable action," the unnamed man says. He said that Fukunaga had prophesized the police crackdown to some 500 followers three weeks ago.

TOKYO, Dec 1 (Reuters) - Japanese police on Wednesday raided offices of a religious cult suspected of swindling three women by promising to diagnose their ailments by examining their feet.
Police said they believed the ``Ho-no-Hana Sampogyo'' cult had persuaded the women to hand over about 22 million yen ($215,000) in return for health advice.
Members of the cult were also suspected of telling the women they would ``die young'' or ``suffer from cancer'' if they failed to listen to the group's advice.
Separately, about 1,100 former followers have filed lawsuits against the cult seeking a total of 5.4 billion yen in damages.
Cult leader Teruyoshi Fukunaga and his disciples do not have any licence to practise medicine, but say they can diagnose people's health and predict their future by examining their feet.
In Wednesday's raids, some 300 investigators searched 74 locations across the country, including the headquarters of the religious group based at the foot of Mount Fuji. It was the biggest police search conducted on a religious group since Aum Shinri Kyo's 1995 nerve gas attack on the Tokyo subway in which 12 people were killed and more than 5,000 were made ill.

Japanese police will search the facilities of Honohana Sanpogyo cult in Tokyo and Shizuoka prefecture, on suspicion the group defrauded followers by charging high training fees, the Japan Times reported, citing unnamed investigation sources. The police suspect that the group founder, Hogen Fukunaga, and other senior members took the money from readers of Fukunaga's books by telling them they would die unless they joined training sessions and bought religious goods. About 1,000 former followers have filed lawsuits against the group, demanding 5.4 billion yen ($52.8 million) in damages, the report said.
The government earlier this month submitted a bill to parliament designed to curb the activities of the Aum Supreme Truth cult, which is suspected of masterminding the 1995 Tokyo subway gassing that killed 12 people and injured more than 5,000.

Police today searched the facilities of a religious organization suspected of bilking billions of yen from its followers.
The searches in nine prefectures hit 74 of Ho no Hana Sanpogyo's facilities, including the organization's head office in Fuji, Shizuoka Prefecture, and its offices in Tokyo's Shibuya Ward, police sources said.
It was the largest search conducted on a religious organization since April 1995, when investigators targeted 120 facilities of Aum Shinrikyo in 27 prefectures.
Since 1996, 1,100 people have sued Ho no Hana Sanpogyo and its leader, Hogen Fukunaga, 54, in 10 district courts, including those in Tokyo and Shizuoka.
The plaintiffs are seeking a total of 5.5 billion yen in compensation.
The organization has collected about 61 billion yen from its followers, the sources said.
Police based today's searches on allegations that Ho no Hana Sanpogyo cheated three homemakers out of 22 million yen from November 1994 to June 1995. Other followers could be added to the police list of victims.
Ho no Hana Sanpogyo's executives, including Fukunaga, offered consulting services for people with health, employment, marital and other problems, the sources said.
During the consultations, the executives examined the people's soles and told them that they had been born under ``unlucky stars,'' the sources said.
The sources said the executives would often scare the people with such words as: ``You will contract cancer if you do nothing.''
The executives then pressed the participants to join training sessions at the organization's facility in Fuji, Shizuoka Prefecture. If they agreed, they were charged participation fees ranging from several million yen to more than 10 million yen.
Complaints about the fees started to increase rapidly in the 1990s, when the organization adopted a system that forced trainees to solicit others for the practice.
Since 1996, the Metropolitan Police Department in Tokyo has questioned plaintiffs in the lawsuits and the organization's executives to determine whether fraud charges are warranted against the organization and its executives.
Tokyo police now suspect the group adopted the solicitation practice ``to obtain money.''

TOKYO (AP) -- Police searching for evidence of fraud Wednesday raided the offices of a Japanese religious group that promised to cure diseases by examining the soles of people's feet.
The headquarters of Ho-no-Hana Sampogyo, near the base of Mt. Fuji, 95 miles west from Tokyo, and 73 other spots nationwide were raided, police said.
Ho-no-Hana Sampogyo refused to comment. The name roughly translates as ``teaching of the flower-three teachings.''
Police said the raid was carried out on suspicion of crimes against three former believers who were allegedly defrauded the equivalent of $215,700.
Some followers paid as much as $980,000 to the group after being warned that they would die or get cancer unless they had the bottoms of their feet inspected, according to Japanese media reports.
The group also advocated that personality traits could be read by the shape of people's feet -- short toes signified short tempers, fat toes foretold of fortunes.
Complaints against the group began about four years ago, and some 1,000 former group members have filed lawsuits, demanding the equivalent of $53 million in damages, Kyodo News service said.
Public alarm has been growing recently about the rise of dubious religious groups. Japanese have traditionally followed a loose mix of Buddhism and native Shinto, but there seems to be increasing interest in new cults.
Experts are divided over the reasons, but some say initiates are searching for spiritual meaning as the nation attains material wealth.
The leader and members of a doomsday cult called Aum Shinri Kyo are accused of pouring lethal nerve gas into Tokyo subways in 1995, killing 12 people and sickening thousands.
Last month, police took nine children into protective custody after inspecting an office and rented rooms used by Life Space, another cult, that kept a mummified corpse in an airport hotel. The followers complained when police took away the corpse because they believe that the man was still alive. Police do not suspect foul play.

Following the furor surrounding AUM Shinrikyo, another religious organization, Ho No Hana Sanpogyo, is coming under the legal-suit cosh.
Ho No Hana is being sued by people demanding the return of exorbitant fees they paid to take part in religious rites that were supposed to relieve them from earthly troubles.
Beginning with the cases of former Ho No Hana followers who claim they were swindled out of millions of yen in practice fees, the Metropolitan Police Department plans to investigate the Fuji, Shizuoka Prefecture - based organization on charges of fraud, officials said.
Lawyers representing those victims say that at least 1,100 people are filing compensation lawsuits with demands totaling 5.5 billion yen, money that they claim was pocketed by Ho No Hana.
Typically, the group first encourages members to listen to people's personal troubles and then advises them to take part in rites, which carry fees, to help solve the problems.
Hogen Fukunaga, the head of Ho No Hana, justifies charging fees by saying in a statement to the courts that "funds paid by followers are a contribution to heaven."
While those involved in the suits claim that they were forced to pay up, Fukunaga denies that Ho No Hana members made people part with their cash. "Although we asked them to take part in our practices, they themselves actually made the decision to do so," he said.
Yet Fukunaga explanation contradicts the plaintiffs stories.
In one case, a middle-aged woman was a victim.
When her daughter suffered from insomnia associated to job problems and took some days off work in June this year, she told Ho No Hana members of the situation. The mother and daughter were immediately summoned to the organization's office in Tokyo's Shibuya, where they met Fukunaga.
After looking at the soles of the daughter's feet in a so-called "sole examination," Fukunaga recommended that she take part in Ho No Hana practices, and members told her mother to pay 18 million yen in fees for practices and a scroll.
The mother had previously taken part in the group's sessions, but didn't volunteer to join a religious session of listening to the "voice of heaven" - as related by Fukunaga. Fukunaga blamed her daughter's problems on this failure.
"Because you didn't listen to the voice of heaven, your daughter received punishment from heaven. Are you really her mother?" Fukunaga asked the mother, lawyers said.
The mother ended up withdrawing her savings and borrowing money from financial institutions to pay the fees.
Another case also involves fees for rites and a scroll. In October 1992, a man in his 60s contacted a Ho No Hana office when he was afraid that he might have contracted the HIV virus after discovering rashes on his body. At the Shibuya office, Fukunaga told him, "When you see a doctor now, he would say you are an AIDS patient."
Then Fukunaga examined his soles, and said, "Your life is bad in the past, present and the future." Following the recommendations of Ho No Hana members, he paid 610,000 yen to take part in a session to aid his situation in Shizuoka Prefecture.
After the ritual, Fukunaga told the man that he couldn't find the AIDS virus in him anymore. So members demanded the man buy a scroll as a home treasure, and he paid 3.3 million yen.
The man then filed a suit with the Shizuoka District Court, demanding the organization return some 5 million yen.
In 1990, the wife of a doctor in Fukuoka was upset because she had no children who could take over her husband's hospital. After she sent a postcard, which she found inserted in a copy of Fukunaga's book that she had read, to Ho No Hana, members told her to partake in their activities.
In April that year, she paid 154,000 yen for a two-day event organized by the group in Fuji. Fukunaga conveyed the "voice of heaven" to her, saying, "Because of your ancestors' trouble, your family is also in trouble." In the usual way, members then told her to take part in a five-day practice, which would cost 1.1 million yen.
When she hesitated, a member said, "Are you going to go against the will of heaven?"
After that, she had to pay 4.55 million yen.
The Fukuoka District Court is hearing her lawsuit, which demands the return of 5.8 million yen from Ho No Hana.

SHIZUOKA -- A total of 291 people filed suit against a Shizuoka-based religious corporation Nov. 14 with the Shizuoka District Court, demanding about 1.28 billion yen in damages.
The plaintiffs, some of whom are former followers, allege that the Ho-no-Hana (Flower of Buddhist Teaching) cult fraudulently collected a huge amount of money from its followers. It is the first damages suit filed by followers against Ho-no-Hana, which is now under fire for allegedly taking a massive sum of donations.
The litigation said the sect charged training fees to its followers, and that its leader, Hogen Fukunaga, demanded money from the followers for meeting them. The guru, after examining their soles, allegedly often told the followers they would suffer from cancer or other diseases.
The plaintiffs demanded damages for mental anguish caused by forced hard training they undertook after consulting the cult about their personal problems. A Ho-no-Hana spokesman said the cult will deal with the litigation in line with similar court cases from the past, after it examines the records of individual donations from the followers.
If the sect finds it is responsible for the claim, it is willing to make an effort to resolve the problem, the spokesman said. But it cannot accept the reasoning that all the activities of the cult are illegal and that it should take responsibility for them, he said.