Owner Relationship Exposed—Inside the Case Surrounding Wakasa Tano
Your sales are low because you’re ugly
“She wasn’t treated as a human being.”
As the victim described, the perpetrators were a group of absolute brutes.
On October 14, Mao-ya Suzuki (39), the manager of the girls’ bar E-Wave Morning in Ikebukuro, Tokyo, and employee Aya Tano (21) were arrested by the Public Safety Division of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police on suspicion of violating the Anti-Prostitution Law (managing prostitution), after forcing a female employee into prostitution while monitoring her with GPS.
The victim is a woman in her twenties. She began working at E-Wave Morning in September last year, but starting in October she was subjected to violence from Suzuki and others.
“Suspect Suzuki reportedly scolded her, saying, ‘Your customer service is terrible, and your sales are low because you’re ugly. Try harder,’ and used violence against her on a daily basis. Suspect Tano was one of the bar’s cast members and also served customers behind the counter. She was the top earner among the roughly nine cast members and was in a relationship with Suzuki. While she earned several million yen a month with her good looks, she too hurled insults at the victim, saying, ‘You’re ugly and can’t bring in sales,’” said a reporter from a national newspaper’s social affairs department.
The violence by Suzuki escalated over time.
“She was reportedly struck on the head with an empty champagne bottle. On top of that, Suzuki said, ‘I’ll manage your money,’ seized two months’ worth of her wages, and extracted her landlord’s contact information by saying, ‘I’ll pay your rent, so give me your real estate agent’s number.’ He then canceled her apartment lease without permission. Having lost her home, the victim was forced to sleep in a one-tatami-mat space in the bar’s cluttered, trash-filled backroom,” the reporter said.
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Even so, her hellish days did not end. In April this year, six months after she started working at the bar, Suzuki forced her to choose: “Either go streetwalking in Okubo Park (in Shinjuku) or work in the sex industry. Pick one.” If she talked back, she would be beaten, so she obeyed and said, “I’ll go streetwalking,” and thus her life under coerced prostitution began.
“Suspect Suzuki handed her a card-type GPS device, telling her, ‘Share your phone’s location information,’ and made her record conversations with customers using a smartphone app. She also had to report the love hotel room number. They monitored her constantly. When Suzuki and Tano came by to check on her, they would accuse her of standing in the wrong place. If she took a break without their permission, they dragged her into a nearby love hotel and beat her on the head with a hanger until she bled,” said an investigator.
On busy days, the woman was forced to sleep with up to 13 men a day. Between May and July — three months — she was made to prostitute herself to roughly 400 men. Her total earnings reached 6 million yen, but almost all of it was sent to Suzuki. They even controlled her diet, saying, “If you get fat, you won’t get customers.”
“They would occasionally give her 3,000 yen as living expenses, but she had to report everything she ate. Every time she bought food, she photographed the receipt and sent it to a three-person group chat.
If she bought snacks or her spending didn’t add up, they became furious and assaulted her. When her face swelled so much that it interfered with her work, instead of hitting her, they made her drink extremely spicy sauce. During the rainy season, when the number of streetwalkers tends to drop, they forced her to stand outside from morning until night, saying, ‘This is when you should be earning the most,’” the investigator continued.
In July this year, the crime came to light when the victim was caught in the act while waiting for customers. During police questioning, she said, “I wasn’t treated like a human being. My body and mind were completely broken, and I had no will to run away. I couldn’t even think of escaping.”
