The Justice Ministry on Monday tentatively decided to transfer 56-year-old Katsuhiko Kumazaki from his position as director of the special investigation division at the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office, they said.

Kumazaki, known as ``Mr Bear'' from the first part of his name, Kuma, would become chief public prosecutor at Central Japan's rural Toyama district public prosecutors Office.

The appointment would be officially announced on June 10, said the business paper Nihon Keizai Shimbun and the Mainichi Shimbun. The Justice Ministry, which makes such appointments, declined to comment.

Kumazaki's transfer came to the light amid growing media speculation that the probes into the wining-and-dining and bribery scandals had been halted under pressure from the all-powerful Finance Ministry.

The weekly magazine ShukanHoseki said in its latest edition that the ministry was rumoured to have conceded to the internal punishment of 112 officials last month only in exchange for a halt to the investigations.

The ministry, with its immense authority over budget appropriations, ``"seems to have made a bluff and sought to end suspicion with only internal sanctions,'' the magazine quoted a political source as saying.

When Kumazaki's prosecution team trooped in double-file through the red-carpeted Finance Ministry on January 26, it was the first such incursion into the building in 50 years.

The arrests of two Finance Ministry officials suspected of taking bribes from banks in return for tip-offs about supposedly unannounced inspections led Finance Minister Hiroshi Mitsuzuka to quit his job within days.

The Bank of Japan meanwhile stepped up in-house probes after one of its senior officials was arrested in March for allegedly taking bribes, the first such action against the Central Bank in its 116-year history.

The arrestled to the resignations of the bank's governor and deputy governor, and 98 officials were punished for accepting lavish entertainment from commercial banks.

The scandals have led to dozens of other arrests and at least five suicides.

The latest victim was an executive of Japan's Central Bank, Takayuki Kamoshida, who was found hanged on May 2 after leading a three-year house-cleaning probe into corruption scandals.

Kumazaki is also credited with his work on the infamous Recruit scandal of the late 1980s in which the major conglomerate was found to have given discount shares to politicians before a public float.

The case brought down the government of then prime minister Noboru Takeshita in June 1989.