Although the building is officially a printing plant, locals reported seeing bags of rice and around 100 straw mats carried into the building during renovations this summer. Public Security Agency officials said they believed the cult had 33 facilities and as many as 100 dormitories throughout the country, with active membership somewhere around 2,000. A spring seminar alone brought in 65 million yen. Japan's difficult economic conditions also help. Several of the cult's recent acquisitions were purchased cheaply through auctions after previous owners went bankrupt.
Officials say their hands are tied.
Anybody has the right to live here as long as they don't do anything wrong. The Public Security Agency's request last year that the government disband the cult under a 1952 anti-subversion law was turned down on the basis the cult was no longer sufficiently threatening. Security officials say that while 24-hour surveillance of the group means little it does is unknown, they remain troubled by a number of factors. These include the scheduled release from prison in 2000 of the cult's charismatic former spokesman, Fumihiro Joyu, who briefly assumed de facto leadership after Asahara's arrest in 1995. Letters from him have been carried in cult publications, and he remains a key figure in the cult's Internet pages.