The exact value depended on future approvals and development outcomes.
But the potential conflict was substantial.
And the chairman hadn't been informed properly.
The nephew learned about the findings while speaking with his attorney.
For several seconds, he stared at the documents.
Then he asked a question that revealed how much he'd misunderstood.
"Was he using my investment losses to make me push the land deal?"
His attorney didn't speculate beyond the evidence.
But the pattern was troubling.
The CFO knew the nephew's financial vulnerabilities.
He helped structure financing that increased the pressure to complete the project.
Then he presented the development agreement as the only realistic solution.
The nephew had become both participant and instrument.
He thought he was protecting his future.
Instead, he had helped advance a plan that could benefit someone else at enormous personal and legal cost.
The younger executive's cooperation changed the investigation.
He provided information about conversations with the CFO, meetings concerning the development timetable, and communications connected to the substance introduced into the matcha.
His attorneys negotiated the appropriate conditions under which he would provide testimony.
The investigators still examined his statements independently.
They didn't treat cooperation as proof of honesty.
And they didn't ignore his own decision to tamper with the drink.
But his information identified additional witnesses and records.
One witness was a former administrative assistant who had worked closely with the CFO.
She remembered receiving requests to arrange unusual private meetings before the chairman's scheduled review.
She also described pressure to prepare executive calendars showing that certain appointments could be postponed if the chairman experienced a medical emergency.
At the time, she thought the discussion concerned ordinary succession planning.
Only later did the context become disturbing.
Another witness described financial presentations that omitted material information about the CFO's relationships with the development consortium.
Together, the records and testimony supported a picture far more serious than a single act of drink tampering.
It was a corporate struggle involving concealed financial interests, compromised decision-making, and an attempt to interfere with the chairman's ability to examine a major transaction.
The poisoning allegation was the most shocking part.
But it wasn't the beginning of the wrongdoing.
It was the moment a long series of dishonest decisions crossed into immediate physical danger.
The chairman struggled with the revelations.
For days, he refused to speak with his nephew.
He remembered raising the boy after his younger brother died.
Teaching him how to read financial reports.
Taking him to negotiations.
And telling employees that the young man represented the family's future.
Now he was being told that the nephew had deliberately interfered with his tea.