Orient Corp is a Japanese consumer credit firm being probed for lending to crime groups with Mizuho Financial Group Inc. Orient said that it had been cooperating with the police to prosecute gangsters who had obtained fraudulent loans.

The company had been in discussions with lawyers to consider action against borrowers who had signed a total of 37 loan contracts. The borrowers had falsely declared that they had no mob ties, said Orient in a statement posted on its website yesterday. Orient Corp had been seeking to cancel the transactions.

Orient had submitted a report to Japan's trade ministry yesterday. The company had been clarifying the Tokyo based company's role in approving loans to members of yakuza gangsters with Mizuho, the biggest shareholder of Orient. Last month, the financial regulator of Japan had ordered Mizuho to improve its compliance for failing to break off loans made to the groups through Orient Group, said a Bloomberg report.