Prison Confession by Luffy Robbery Gang Inmate Risa Yamada Reveals Shocking Details of Special Fraud Techniques

《Summary of Previous Installments》

Risa Yamada (27), born and raised in a poor family in Kawagoe City, Saitama Prefecture, spent her days immersed in the nightlife of Kabukicho, Shinjuku, after graduating from a night high school. One day, feeling anxious about her current situation, she found a dark job advertisement on Twitter (now X) and traveled to the Philippines in 2019 to work as a scammer for a large sum of money. There, she met Yuki Watanabe, an executive of the “Luffy Robbery Gang,” which would later shock Japan with its special fraud and robbery activities. In Watanabe’s group, Yamada became known as the “legendary scammer” who defrauded 30 million yen a month, but soon after, their base was raided by the local police.

 

Torture Inside the Box

The “box” that Yamada was part of in the Philippines, a general term for special fraud groups, was called A. The boss of this box was Watanabe. In November 2019, when the A box and ST box, based at the West Makati Hotel, were simultaneously raided by Philippine authorities, the executives and Yamada managed to avoid arrest.

According to her testimony, “The executives, who had connections with the police, the governor, and local mafias, paid money to the authorities and then ‘selected’ and ‘saved’ the core members.” Those who could be useful for their operations were protected, while others were ruthlessly discarded. This is the essence of the Luffy group. 

“Even after the raid, I was still earning (extorting) about 30 million yen a month. Looking back, it seems that the members of the box managed by the Luffy group were very strongly controlled by fear.

They enjoyed watching new recruits suffer after being given alcohol laced with large amounts of laxatives, and there were instances where members who said ‘I want to go home’ suddenly disappeared. Later, I heard a story that that person disappeared because they tried to return home, so we said they died of illness. There were also tortures such as repeatedly pushing faces into a water tank to suffocate them, hitting their heads with a gun, or forcing them to crawl on all fours and inserting and removing a toothbrush from their anus.

There was also an incident where Seiya Fujita, who was in charge of Box A along with Mr. Watanabe, suddenly yelled at one of the members in front of everyone and slapped them repeatedly. I also saw a video showing a lynching of a recruit who tried to back out, including having their ears cut off. They also talked about having murder videos. If I slack off even a little or if Mr. Fujita was in a bad mood, I would be threatened with ‘I’ll kill you!’ through the messaging app Telegram. The suffering was so intense that I thought of quitting at least five times. However, because I saw the threats up close, I was scared and thought that if I worked hard, I might avoid being killed. I believe other members felt the same way.”

After the raid in November 2019, Box A was relocated to another hotel in Makati City. After that, it moved to a hotel in Bacolod City, 700 kilometers away by plane, and then sequentially to Boracay Island and Luzon Island. During this period, Yamada also visited the box called ‘Headquarters’ under Watanabe’s instructions.

“After checking into the hotel in Bacolod, Mr. Watanabe asked me to check on the situation at Headquarters. I went alone to the Manila box and worked as a caller for two weeks. At Headquarters, there were about 30 well-known semi-gangs and yakuza members, and I heard that 80% of them had killed people in Japan. The official name of Headquarters is too frightening to reveal. I have also met members of the Japanese criminal organization ‘JP Dragon,’ which was reported as the mastermind behind the Luffy group and is based in the Philippines. Although they might seem young, many of them were actually in their 40s and 50s.”