Crackdown on Scout Groups Spurs Rise in Independent Sex Work

Scout groups are in a state of collapse due to the police’s top-level operation

On May 20, the revised Adult Entertainment Business Act was passed and enacted by the House of Representatives. The revised law not only bans hosts’ “accounts receivable” and “romantic sales,” but also prohibits scout commissions paid by adult entertainment establishments as compensation for introducing women.

On April 22, the Tokyo Metropolitan Police re-arrested Kazuma Endo (33), leader of the scout group “Access,” on suspicion of violating the Organized Crime Punishment Act (concealing criminal proceeds) for illegally arranging women for sexual services at adult entertainment venues and hiding scout commissions.

“From November to December last year, Endo allegedly illegally arranged women to provide sexual services at eight soaplands nationwide, knowing about it. He is suspected of having the establishments send a total of 1.49 million yen in cash as scout commissions for 27 women, concealed through six transfers to a virtual office.

Endo reportedly demanded the establishments to avoid traceable bank transfers, saying, ‘The police are getting stricter, so please avoid payments that leave a record.’ Before this arrest, Endo had been arrested seven times on suspicion of violating the Employment Security Act (introducing harmful work),” said a national newspaper social affairs reporter.

Before this arrest, on January 27, several members of “Natural,” the country’s largest scout group, were arrested on suspicion of violating the Employment Security Act for introducing women to sex work for prostitution. The Tokyo Metropolitan Police estimate that the group has about 1,500 members nationwide and annual sales around 5 billion yen, boasting strong mobilization and financial power.

“Like a top-level operation aimed at dismantling organized crime groups, the Metropolitan Police launched a scout hunt. Scouts are considered a leading example of anonymous, fluid criminal groups known as ‘Tokuryu.’

Currently, the investigation is focusing on both groups suspected of funneling women with host club debts into sex work for prostitution and laundering criminal proceeds. In the future, store managers of adult entertainment venues who received introductions from scouts and hosts who introduced women to scouts are also expected to be arrested,” the source added.

Some soapland workers are turning to independent (private) operations

Former Saitama Prefectural Police Investigation Division officer Seizo Sasaki spoke about the background of the thorough crackdown on scouts:

“The police have intensified their crackdown because the money from these scout groups is flowing to anti-social forces. Also, some young people think being a scout is cool and easily access it through social media without any sense of guilt, leading them to get involved in crimes like fraud and getting arrested. The crackdown also serves to raise awareness that scouting is illegal.”

The effects of this thorough scout crackdown have already begun to appear in Tokyo’s sex industry.

“In Tokyo’s Yoshiwara, Japan’s largest soapland district, a large number of soapland workers recruited through scouts are being dismissed. Former workers who can no longer rely on scouts are desperately trying to earn quickly by claiming to be ex-soapland workers on social media and doing private operations or registering with ultra-luxury dating clubs,” said a sex industry writer.

An owner who has been running a dispatch-type sex business in Tokyo for over 20 years and has long recruited women through scout groups said:

“Although there are very rare cases of freelance scouts, most popular stores in Tokyo had scouts from either ‘Access’ or ‘Natural.’ Our store was the same, but we no longer employ women recruited through scouts. In our case, the scouts received 10-15% of the monthly sales from the women they introduced while they worked, plus an advisory fee of 50,000 to 70,000 yen per month based on the condition that a certain number of women were brought into the store each month.”

The level of the women is overwhelmingly higher

Even paying that much in fees, the benefits of relying on scouts were significant.

“It’s quite difficult to recruit women through job ads alone. When we ask scouts, ‘Please find women like this,’ they list several candidates matching our requests. If those women sell well, the money paid to scouts was quickly recovered. Occasionally, freelance scouts bring good candidates too, but the level of women brought by the two big groups’ scouts was overwhelmingly higher.”

With the major scout groups dismantled and scout-back fees now banned, what’s next? The owner predicts, “The scouting business won’t disappear.”

“Members who avoided arrest from those groups will likely become more active freelance scouts. Because they operated on a large scale, the police targeted them, but individual contracts with shops are harder to track. While some scouts were malicious, both the working women and shops needed them.”

If regulated by law, they’ll just go underground. From now on, dark scouts are expected to become widespread.