A photo of the “soliciting woman” who cheated male customers in Kabukicho.

5% of sales and 10% of profits.

It appears that the arrested man was collecting as royalties a portion of the money the restaurant earned when his associates became independent from the group.

The suspect, Yukiya Kinoshita, 28, a restaurant manager, was re-arrested by the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department by May 30. He is believed to be the leader of the largest rip-off group in Kabukicho, Shinjuku. He is alleged to have received approximately 2.4 million yen in cash from his friends on nine occasions between January of last year and April of this year, knowing that the money was obtained through unauthorized business entertainment.

Kinoshita was previously arrested for violating a rip-off ordinance and soliciting teenage girls to work at his store. He was re-arrested and has denied some of the charges to the police, saying that he received the money but did not know it was illegal earnings.

In an article distributed on April 7 of this year, “FRIDAY Digital” reported in detail on the matching app rip-offs involving Kinoshita and the woman who acted as the solicitor. We would like to recount a summary of the incident (with some changes).

Let’s take off our clothes.

If you can’t pay, go to a convenience store and withdraw your money.

I’m not letting you go home.

The bar staff yelled at the customers and demanded large sums of money from them.

On April 6, the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department’s Security Division announced the arrest of 19 men and women, including employees of a bar in Kabukicho, Shinjuku, on suspicion of violating the Tokyo Metropolitan Government’s rip-off ordinance (prohibition of collecting unreasonable charges). The employees ranged in age from 19 to 34. The arrested women are alleged to have invited male customers they met on a matching app to their bar, had them drink alcohol, and made them pay hundreds of thousands of yen. At least five men were victims.

The woman met up with a man she met on a matching app at JR Shinjuku Station and other locations. They hid the fact that they were employees and invited them to the bar where they worked, saying things like, ‘There’s a restaurant I want to go to,’ and ‘After we go to the restaurant, let’s hang out in my room.

The store would explain that ‘all you can drink for 5,000 yen,’ and invite the customers to participate in a card game. The woman would invite them to ‘take off your clothes for a round of shots if you lose,’ and would get them drunk. Some customers were forced to drink nearly 100 shots in one gulp.

(A reporter for a national newspaper) Although the bar offered “all-you-can-drink for 5,000 yen,” the shots taken by male customers were not included in the system.

The shots were said to have cost more than 3,000 yen each. The restaurant refused to accept credit card payments for fear of leaving a trace. Only cash was accepted. Few people would be able to pay several hundred thousand yen in cash immediately after being charged several hundred thousand yen. Some customers were asked to pay more than 300,000 yen.

The employees surrounded the drunken customers and threatened them, saying, “Go to the convenience store and get the money. Go to the convenience store and withdraw the money! We won’t let you leave until you pay us! They would threaten the drunken customers, saying, “We won’t let you leave until you pay us! If they still didn’t have enough cash, they would go to jewelry stores and take precious metals that the customers had purchased with their credit cards. In some cases, they copied their insurance cards and driver’s licenses, and even broke into their homes,” he said.

In Kabukicho, rip-off crimes using matching apps have been frequent. According to the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department, the total damage amounted to approximately 57 million yen this year alone.