BY ANDRES OPPENHEIMER

 After a decade of flourishing Peruvian-Japanese ties under former President Alberto Fujimori, Peruvian authorities are complaining that Japan is blocking their inquiries into the disgraced former president's foreign bank accounts.

 Peru's Justice Minister, Diego García Sayán, said in a telephone interview this week that ``Japanese authorities have not provided any collaboration'' in efforts to find
 Fujimori's bank accounts in Japan, where he is now living.

 This week, Fujimori denied statements by Peruvian congresswoman Susana Higuchi -- his former wife -- that he kept an account in Japan with $12.5 million from a
 Japanese donation for impoverished Peruvian children that he had received in 1990. Fujimori said he has no accounts in Japan.

 ``We suspect that the [Fujimori] money is in Asia,'' García Sayán said. ``But we don't perceive any enthusiasm on the part of Japan to find possible illicit bank accounts in Japanese banks. One gets the impression that Japan's policy is of absolute secrecy, as used to be the case in other countries in the past.''

 Katsuhiro Matsumoto, a political officer with the Japanese Embassy in Lima, rejected the justice minister's allegations. ``We are cooperating within the framework of our legal system. Each country has its own system, and we have to adjust whatever differences there are,'' Matsumoto said.

 So far, Peru has not been able to find any Fujimori funds in foreign bank accounts. But the discovery of at least $204 million in Swiss and U.S. bank accounts of his
 former intelligence chief, Vladimiro Montesinos, has fueled speculation that Fujimori may have similar -- or bigger -- fortunes hidden abroad.

 According to García Sayán, the millions in Montesinos' name are only a portion of the $800 million that Peru suspects was illegally taken from Peruvian government
 coffers by the former intelligence chief. Much of the money was taken from arms sales commissions and military purchases, Peruvian investigators say.

 José Ugaz, Peru's special prosecutor in the Montesinos case, said in an interview that he has sent official requests on possible Fujimori accounts to Japan, Singapore
 and Panama, but has not yet received any response.

 ``In fact, Japan turned back our letter, claiming there were translation problems,'' Ugaz said. ``There seems to be an ethnic-cultural attitude of supporting somebody they see as one of their own who became a president of a Latin American country.''

 After revelations of massive government corruption, which had been captured on videotape by Montesinos, Fujimori surprised the world by resigning by fax while on a visit to Japan in November. Peru has since held democratic elections, and President-elect Alejandro Toledo has asked Japan to extradite the former president.

 Japan has said it will not extradite Fujimori, because it has no extradition treaty with Peru. In addition, Japan considers Fujimori a Japanese national, because his name was registered in a Japanese family registry after his birth.

 Peruvian officials speculate that Japan also supports Fujimori because he led -- at least for the television cameras -- a 1997 rescue of hostages at the Japanese
 diplomatic residence in Lima.

 Peru last week issued an international warrant for the arrest of the former Peruvian ambassador to Japan, Victor Aritomi. Aritomi, believed to be in Tokyo, is suspected of having key information about possible front men or shell corporations that the former president may have used to open bank accounts abroad, the justice minister said.

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