4 women arrested in Tokyo's Kabukicho district for soliciting foreign tourists for prostitution
The four women were arrested earlier this week around Okubo Park in Kabukicho, police said Thursday. The park has become a popular spot for women offering sex services to foreign tourists since 2023 after a number of YouTube videos went viral.
Police said 75 women have been arrested around the park between January and June of this year, Sankei Shimbun reported. This is more than double the number arrested during the same period last year.
One of the four women arrested this week, Miyu Aoyagi, 20, told police she had earned about 110 million yen since July 2023.
Aoyagi was quoted by police as saying, "I did it only with foreigners and elderly men who were definitely not plainclothes police officers.'
According to police, in order to avoid detection, Aoyagi created a social networking site (SNS) chatroom for women waiting for customers and shared information about police patrols and photos of investigators. A total of 26 women participated in the group, negotiating the price for their 'services' with foreigners through a translation app.
The Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department said it is increasing patrols in the area and is urging foreign tourists to be careful.
Police said there have been a growing number of complaints from local residents and passersby about the women who hang out in Okubo Park. The worsening public safety is also a problem at the park, with curious onlookers getting into trouble with the women, police said.
© Japan Today
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Japan Today
a day ago
- Japan Today
Several people near Osaka fireworks venue complain of eye pain after being sprayed with mace
Several people suffered eye pain after being sprayed with mace after watching a fireworks festival in Osaka on Friday night. The incident occurred at around 10:15 p.m. at Kema Sakuranomiya Park in Miyakojima Ward, Sankei Shimbun reported. The park is near the Tenjin Festival fireworks venue, and many spectators were on their way home about an hour after the fireworks had finished. According to police, witnesses said that a shirtless man in his 20s suddenly called out to another man in his 20s, 'You want to fight?' He then started spraying a substance believed to be mace. Several men and women nearby complained of eye pain. The assailant fled the area. © Japan Today
SoraNews24
a day ago
- SoraNews24
Tokyo prostitution ring members who targeted foreigners arrested
In possibly related incident, Tokyo Metropolitan Police received complaint from foreigner that 'I paid the woman the money, but didn't get to have sex.' On Thursday, the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department announced that they have arrested a group of four women on charges of prostitution in the city's Kabukicho bar district. As there's been a troubling increase in brazen street prostitution in this part of the city in recent years, with a corresponding increase in attention from law enforcement, the arrests themselves aren't so shocking, but the women's methodology, and certain complaints the police have been receiving, are pretty startling. One of the four women, all of whom have admitted to the prostitution charges against them, has been identified as a sort of de-facto leader of the group, organizing a network with more than two dozen members who would share text messages and photos alerting each other to police patrols in the area. This wasn't their only strategy for avoiding arrest, however, as during questioning one of the woman told investigators: 'If we were [having sex with] foreigners, we figured there was no way they'd be undercover police officers and so we wouldn't get caught.' The details of exactly how the group, who used phone translation apps to negotiate terms with foreign customers, were identified by police as prostitutes hasn't been made public. The woman's past-tense framing that they 'thought' they'd be able to weed out plainclothes cops by focusing on foreigners makes one wonder if that eventually turned out to be not as safe a ploy as they'd expected. While foreign nationals cannot become police officers in Japan, there's no ethnicity requirement, meaning that non-ethnically Japanese citizens of Japan, including nationalized citizens who immigrated to the country and thus may still look like 'foreigners,' could theoretically be employed for sting operations against individuals offering illegal services to foreign tourists. On the other hand, it's possible that the woman's use of 'thought' is just a reflection that, with the quartet under arrest for prostitution, they're not currently plying their trade, putting all their related methods in the past. The group didn't completely ignore potential Japanese clients either, though in such cases they targeted older men, again under the logic that they were less likely to be undercover police officers. ▼ Probably not a cop. As such, it's hard to say whether or not there was non-ethnically Japanese personnel working on the side of the law making the arrests. However, the police do know that there have been instances of foreigners attempting to purchase the services of prostitutes in Tokyo, and by their own admission. Between October of 2024 and June of 2025, the Tokyo Metropolitan Police say that they have received 11 reports from foreigners with complaints such as 'I paid [a woman] the money, but was unable to have sex with her,' or 'A woman stole my money at a hotel.' Investigators are currently looking into whether the four women were involved in any of those instances, though in the context of seeing if they were involved in additional cases of illegal prostitution, not for charges of fraudulent failure to render services. This is a good time to take a moment and remember that while Japan has a wide variety of legal hostess bars, house-call erotic massage companies, and other entertainment services specializing in sexual titillation, prostitution, in the sense of exchanging money for sexual intercourse, is against the law. Somewhat confusingly, Japan's Anti-Prostitution Law only has specified penalties for those selling sex, and no codified punishment for those purchasing it, but both parties involved in the transaction are technically breaking the law. With prostitution concerns on the rise throughout Japanese society, and the recent arrests bringing a new wave of attention to undesirable conduct by foreign tourists, it wouldn't be surprising if police forces stop letting johns off the hook and start putting the cuffs on them too, since even if their case never makes it to trial because there's no punishment to render, the Japanese legal system can still make getting arrested very unpleasant. Source: Tokyo Shimbun, NHK News Web, Bengoshi JP News Top image: Pakutaso Insert images: Pakutaso ● Want to hear about SoraNews24's latest articles as soon as they're published? Follow us on Facebook and Twitter!
Tokyo Reported
a day ago
- Tokyo Reported
Kabukicho prostitutes suspected of defrauding foreign tourists in Kabukicho
TOKYO (TR) – Tokyo Metropolitan Police have arrested four women on suspicion of soliciting prostitution in the Kabukicho red-light district of Shinjuku Ward. Though sex tourism is considered an issue, the suspects in this case were likely defrauding tourists instead of having sex with them for money, reports Jiji Press (July 24). Between May 14 and June 19, Miyu Aoyagi, 20, and the other three suspects are suspected of targeting foreign tourists for prostitution in the area around Okubo Park. According to police, the suspects stood and waited for customers in the area, which includes a row of love hotels, in a practice referred to as tachinbo . All four have admitted to violating the Anti-Prostitution Law. Aoyagi said, 'I engaged in prostitution only with foreigners and elderly men who I believed were definitely not plainclothes police officers. I created group chats with other girls to share information about police officers cracking down on them.' For the latter, she shared photos of investigators' faces and the patrol status around the park within the group, which has 26 members. The funds were used for gambling, to cover living expenses and pay for host club bills. Miyu Aoyagi, left, Sayaka Ando (26), second from left, Ami Nishimoto (25), second from right, and Yuka Uchiyama (24) 'My wallet was stolen' Through June, police had arrested 75 people for soliciting customers for prostitution in Kabukicho this year. That figure is 40 more than that over the same period last year. Among their customers are foreign tourists, who are increasingly looking to buy sex around Okubo Park — and they had better be on their guard. According to police, Aoyagi made about 110 million yen over the last two years. However, police believe a lot of those gains came from fraud. Between October last year and June, police received around 50 calls from customers. 'My wallet was stolen at a hotel,' one said. 'I paid but the deed wasn't done and then [a woman] called her accomplices and they threatened me,' another said. 'Pay me 10,000 yen first' Another suspect is Yuka Uchiyama. Just before her arrest, a camera for TBS News caught her putting cash she received from a man into her bag and disappearing into the night. Here's how she operated: After negotiating a deal — say, for 10,000 yen — with a foreign customer, they both go to a hotel. 'Pay me 10,000 yen first,' she will say. After receiving the amount, she'll announce, 'I came to the hotel for 10,000 yen. This is the end.' She'll then head for the door. 'Unique Japanese scene' However, many women actually engaged in sex with foreign tourists for money. The find out why foreign tourists prefer to pick up streetwalkers around Okubo Park, TBS News conducts several interviews. 'There is a YouTuber who introduces that there is a street in Kabukicho where you can have sexual relations [with women],' a Korean man says. A man from Finland shows the network a TikTok video. He says that he came across the video after it was recommended on the app. 'There are quite a lot [of these videos],' he says. 'I think it's a unique Japanese scene.' A man from France acknowledges that he went to a hotel with a woman. He says, 'This is the best place.' Sex tourism Kazunori Yamai, of the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, raised the issue of foreign tourists visiting for the purpose of prostitution in the Diet 'Foreign men come to Tokyo for sex tourism,' said the House of Representatives member. 'Is this situation really something we can just ignore?' The Anti-Prostitution Law prohibits prostitution, but there are no penalties for those who buy sex. Kazuna Kanajiri is the director of PAPS (Organization for Pornography and Sexual Exploitation Survivors). She says that the law needs to be revised. '[Under the current circumstances] the buyers can approach women as much as they want without being punished If there are no buyers, [women] will not be forced to sell sex. We need legal penalties as soon as possible,' she says.
