Ex-Toyota exec to be released from custody after allegedly importing illegal painkillers

Tokyo prosecutors plan to release former Toyota Motor Corp executive Julie Hamp from custody after she was arrested last month on suspicion of illegally importing the painkiller Oxycodone into Japan, Kyodo News reported. It’s believed Hamp was unlikely to be charged because prosecutors judged there was little criminal intent in the case, in which a family member had mailed Oxycodone pills to her to alleviate knee pain. Kyodo said Hamp, who resigned from her post as chief communications officer last week, three months after her appointment as Toyota’s first female managing officer, was set to be released without indictment.

Maybe we didn’t have enough support for her in Japan, but there will be no change to our basic fundamental policy.

Toyota CEO and founding family heir Akio Toyoda said.

Hamp had reportedly stated that she knew the drug was regulated in Japan, but that she did not consider it an illegal drug. Japanese media reports, citing police investigators, had said that 57 addictive Oxycodone pills were found in a small parcel labelled “necklaces” that was sent from the United States and addressed to Hamp in Japan. A spokeswoman for the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office declined to comment on the report.

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