The Real Luffy: Inside the Anime-Obsessed Crime Ring Behind Japan’s Robbery Wave

Terrifying. The shocking full story of the prison escape plan devised by Luffy and his gang.

 

The first part, in which defendant Tomonobu Kojima (47), who was a top executive of the “Luffy Robbery Gang,” talked about what the executives were doing in the Philippines, is here.

The boss, Yuki Watanabe (41), and Toshiya Fujita (41) made a move when Kiyoto Imamura (41) was thrown into a punishment cell for using methamphetamine inside the detention center. They went directly to the warden to save Imamura and actually managed to rescue him. After being released, Imamura kicked S out of the VIP room and secured a room with air conditioning and a fully equipped kitchen, which came to be called the “Kiyoto Room.”

Feeling indebted to the two, Imamura invited them, “Want to work together?” That’s when the boss’s plan began to take shape. Fujita proposed a plan to Imamura: use Fujita’s Korean friend to transfer them to a remote island prison, then escape overseas via Colombia to Spain. They estimated they needed about 30 million yen per person. This would later lead to the robbery incidents.

What was the escape plan?

First, they would forge birth certificates to obtain Philippine passports. Then, after being transferred to a remote island prison, they would bribe the warden and get out of the country.

Imamura agreed to Fujita’s proposal, but I couldn’t believe things would go so smoothly. Around that time, the boss and Fujita extracted from Imamura the methods of his meth business, had Imamura provide operating capital, and attempted smuggling. At the same time, the boss instructed me to introduce an “R” (a fraud mule) to Imamura.

However, when I actually introduced R to Imamura, he refused to pay expenses and success fees. While I received repeated inquiries about payment from the underground gig firms I’d asked to recruit R, Imamura repeatedly dodged payment.

I confronted him about this, and we had a huge fight in September 2022. In anger, I told him I wouldn’t participate in the escape plan. I also told the boss and Fujita that I would never work with Imamura again. The boss understood, but I was persuaded with, “We need people for the takaki (robbery).”

Fujita said, “After the escape plan is carried out, we’ll kill Imamura and take everything.” Ultimately, Fujita took responsibility, so I continued recruiting R and the execution team. After that, I no longer dealt with Imamura directly; Fujita became the intermediary.

According to Kojima’s testimony, by about September 2022 the robbery plan was already in motion. The roles in the robbery were divided as follows: Imamura was the planner and the one who gathered information and gave orders; Fujita handled direction, planning, and management of the stolen funds; Watanabe handled planning, direction, and transfer/management of the stolen money; Kojima served as the contact with the underground gig firms and recruited the executioners via SNS.

The main SNS account names used during the robberies were: Imamura used “Luffy” and “Mitsuhashi”; Fujita used “Kim”; Watanabe used “Sugar”; Kojima used names such as “Tatsuhiko Shiratori.”

Why Imamura Called Himself “Luffy”

Imamura was an avid fan of the manga One Piece. He could recite lines from memory and even remembered which quotes and scenes appeared in which volumes. It was from this deep admiration that he began calling himself “Luffy.”

Similarly, he loved Kyo Kara Ore Wa!! (From Today, It’s My Turn!!), and chose the name “Mitsuhashi” from its protagonist’s surname. As for “Tatsuhiko Shiratori,” that name came from the main character of Shinjuku Swan, which he described as his bible. In short, the nicknames were simply inspired by his favorite manga characters.

Although the plan was moving forward, Imamura’s sloppy business operations kept collapsing.

His method was to pick up robbery tips (neta) and just pass them along—that was the extent of his work. Add his meth addiction to his naturally careless personality, and it was clear things couldn’t go well. He also attempted several fraud schemes, but all ended in failure.

Seeing this, Fujita declared, “Imamura is useless,” and after consulting with the boss, joined the operation as a coordinator himself. Around this time, the boss was fully absorbed in preparations for a meth smuggling venture.

In October 2022, the so-called Inagi Incident occurred—female residents were assaulted, and 35 million yen in cash and gold were stolen. I learned the details from the news and, shocked by the violence, asked the boss for an explanation. All he said was, “Ask Fujita.”

That incident, along with the later Hiroshima Incident, gave me a strong sense that a major tragedy was inevitable. From then on, I began clearly distancing myself from the executives.

By November, the executives’ behavior began to change.

The boss and Fujita invested the money from the robberies into their meth business. Imamura tested the samples multiple times, was satisfied with the quality, and ordered more to be sent to Japan—but what arrived was fake. They had been scammed by their supplier, losing all their money.

Later, they bought another kilogram of meth from a Nigerian man in Bicutan, but again, it turned out to be fake. Enraged, Fujita nearly went after the Nigerian with a knife. Imamura was also visibly unstable. Ironically, the very group that had grown through fraud was now being deceived and robbed themselves.

To vent their frustrations, the boss began summoning his Filipino wife to the detention center, while Fujita called in a woman he had met on a dating app. They spent their time indulging in sex inside the facility, dividing their beds with curtains and suppressing their voices to avoid detection.

Then, in January 2023, the Komae Incident occurred—resulting in fatalities.

(Honorifics omitted. To be continued.)

From the September 26, 2025, issue of “FRIDAY”