From Behind Bars, a Crime Boss Reveals the Rules He Enforced in the Luffy Robbery Gang
They filmed torture videos to enforce discipline within the black-market part-time crime group!
Tomonobu Kojima (47), a top leader of the group behind the “Luffy Wide-Area Robbery Case” that terrorized Japan from 2022 to 2023. He spoke inside the visitors’ room of the Tokyo Detention House.
In July 2019, Seiya Fujita joined the group. He was appointed head of recruiters.
After Fujita became the head recruiter, incidents of couriers (“Uke-ko” or R) running off with the proceeds greatly decreased. The contact unit led by Fujita tortured those who tried to flee with the money, filming videos such as cutting off their ears. These were then shown to other Rs as a means of controlling them through fear. Fujita quickly distinguished himself in the group, and the boss valued his achievements.
Imamura and M were put in charge of the boxes (cells), with box chiefs beneath them, Fujita as head of recruitment, and Kojima handling collections — thus the executives’ roles were clearly divided. At the height of the organization’s prosperity, Watanabe purchased the “West Makati Hotel” for 1.2 billion yen as a new base. However — less than two months later, in November 2019, the group was hit by a crackdown from Philippine authorities, suffering devastating losses.
Thirty-six members were arrested in that raid. At that point, JP Dragon — a separate fraud group — approached the authorities as intermediaries. The boss paid them 55 million yen, gave them the fraud schemes free of charge, and allowed them to use our collectors and Rs in exchange for negotiating the release of our people. As a result, both our personnel and our know-how, along with our headquarters, were taken over by them.
However, when we learned that the crackdown had been orchestrated by JP Dragon in collusion with the authorities, the boss was furious. He sent spies into the cells absorbed by JP Dragon, and the two groups entered into open warfare.
The executives constantly had bodyguards for protection against attacks, and the boss and M disappeared from sight. By December, the remaining members had relocated to Bacolod City on Negros Island, where they were sheltered thanks to connections with local power brokers.
Despite the organization suffering major setbacks, Fujita displayed his talent as a recruiter, continually replenishing new members and keeping the jobs going.
The boss basically lived in casino resorts. By gambling at casinos, he accumulated points that allowed him to stay at the hotels within the resorts. He spent all day playing baccarat, and used the points to stay in suites costing 1.6 million yen per night.
He was so skilled that I even thought, “The boss doesn’t live off special fraud, but off baccarat.” When I visited his suite to report on work, he sometimes gave me around 2 million yen as pocket money. I used that money on slot machines and hit jackpots worth 50 million yen three times.
The boss had a Filipino woman who was his wife on paper, plus one common-law wife in the Philippines and another in Japan, as well as lovers and mistresses among the female phone operators. Women flocked to him because of his money. One Filipino wife was named “Mika,” and under her name, the boss bought up properties and land as assets. Outside of casinos and women, he did not waste money.
As for luxuries, he wore a Rolex Daytona worth 12 million yen, which Fujita and I gave him as a gift. His main car was a Lexus LX570 worth 45 million yen, reinforced to Bulletproof Level 6. He also owned a BMW X6 M worth 30 million yen and two BMW motorcycles.
A Life of Extravagance Funded by Stolen Money, the Shocking Reason Why There Was No Sense of Guilt
――The lives of Kojima himself, Fujita, and the other executives were nothing short of lavish.
I love cars, and between February 2019 and April 2021 — just two years and two months — I bought 11 luxury cars. These included an Audi TT, four Porsches, and even a Lamborghini Urus.
I was also into Rolex watches, owning 15 of them. On top of that, I had about 500 pairs of premium sneakers like Nike Dunks and Air Jordans, which I resold as a side business. That side business alone brought in around 5 million yen a month.
I lived in a high-rise apartment with rent of about 500,000 yen. My playboy lifestyle was flashy too — I did papa-katsu with so-called Minato-ku women and even invited Japanese gravure idols and entertainers to private resorts, partying hard with A-Box members. It cost about 2 million yen for one night, but the boss and I split the expenses.
We often chartered yachts as well. To be honest, since my main role was in collections, I didn’t really feel guilty that this extravagant lifestyle was funded with stolen money at the time. No matter how much I spent, the money never seemed to run out — my sense of money and morality was completely numb.
As for Fujita, the woman he was dating back then was actually the boss of the female attendants. Maybe that’s why his private life was relatively quiet. At most, he would spend about 100,000 yen in one night at KTV clubs — cabaret-style bars in Makati City. Fujita was basically a workaholic, constantly focused on recruitment in order to keep earning.
And surprisingly, he was also a real girlfriend guy. He valued his family and spent money on them. He lived in a house with a pool, costing about 1 million yen in rent, with two maids and three bodyguards. He owned five Rolex watches. His cars were a 35-million-yen Aston Martin and a 20-million-yen Lexus LX450d. His beloved motorcycle was a Ducati.
After the November 2019 crackdown, executives and members fled to Cebu Island, Boracay, Bulacan, and elsewhere to escape the authorities. Until 2020, they continued living in springtime luxury, but everything changed in 2021. In February that year, Fujita was arrested by authorities, and by April, Watanabe, Kojima, and M were also arrested and sent to detention.
During the pandemic, as countries went into lockdown, it became difficult to physically move proceeds across borders. Just when we had managed to establish a system of underground remittances using the boss’s casino accounts, we were suddenly arrested.
The boss and I were transferred from one provincial prison to another, spending about half a year in the same cell. The boss was also an anime otaku, fond of isekai reincarnation stories, which we watched together. But during that time, M — who had been released on bail — ended up taking over the entire organization.
――In November 2021, Watanabe and Kojima were sent to Bicutan Detention Center. There, they reunited with Fujita, who had already been detained, and Imamura — who had transformed into a completely different person.
(Text omits honorifics. To be continued in the next issue.)
From the September 12-19, 2025, issue of “FRIDAY”
Interview and text by： Shimei Kurita (Nonfiction writer)
