Japanese prosecutors Tuesday arrested Tetsuya Komuro, one of the most successful producers in Japan`s pop music history, on suspicion of fraud, reports said.

Komuro, 49, is alleged to have defrauded a man out of 500 million yen (five million dollars), the Jiji Press news agency and television networks said.

The reports came shortly after television showed Komuro being driven to the Osaka District Public Prosecutors` Office in western Japan.

Rows of dark-suited investigators were seen walking into the building that houses his apartment in Tokyo.

No immediate confirmation of his arrest was available from the prosecutors` office.

Komuro allegedly told an investor in western Japan`s Hyogo prefecture that he would sell for one billion yen the copyright of 806 tunes he had composed and written words for, even though he did not actually own the rights, reports said.

The man paid Komuro 500 million yen as part of the fake contract.

Komuro made his musical debut in a three-member band TM NETWORK in 1984.

He then rose to stardom as a producer in the 1990s by forming a group of top-selling artists called `Komuro family.` They included diva Namie Amuro as well as singing groups trf and globe, and enjoyed a large fanbase in Asia.

He was one of the richest men in Japan in the mid-1990s on sales of more than 170 million CDs he produced.

But he fell into debt in recent years due to payments to his divorced wife and failures in overseas investment, reports said.