They won’t give you money unless you beat them up…” The perpetrator of a wide-scale robbery reveals the true evil side of the “Rufy Group” executives.
The true face of the directing officers revealed by the perpetrator
The trial of defendant Seiya Fujita, 41, an executive of the “Luffy Group,” opened on January 26. In the first part of this report, we wrote about Seiya Fujita’s upbringing and his life in the Bicutan camp. In the second part, we will summarize defendant Fujita’s testimony regarding the inside story of the widespread robbery that shook all of Japan.
The two defendants who played the main role in directing the robberies were Mato Imamura, 41, and Fujita. Defendant Fujita sent instructions using a Telegram account under the name “Kim. The name used by the Imamura defendants was “Rufi.” Along with “Mitsuhashi,” which has been used since the attempted robbery in Iwakuni City, Yamaguchi Prefecture, in November 2010, these three accounts have been used frequently for robbery instructions.
It is a little complicated, but Imamura’s group and the group headed by defendant Yuuki Watanabe, 41, are originally different. In Fujita’s words, they are “different companies. Of the perpetrators recruited through the “black market” recruitment, Imamura gave instructions to those recruited by Imamura, and Fujita gave instructions to those recruited by Watanabe’s group. The cash obtained from the robberies was also sent to the Philippines through a different route.
However, when Fujita proposed an overseas escape plan to Imamura, Watanabe’s group began taking care of Imamura’s money under the guise of “managing the escape fund. From this point on, they began to conspire to commit robberies.
At Fujita’s trial, the perpetrators of the robberies appeared as witnesses. One of them was Kazuki Ishiguri, who was arrested for a robbery in Inagi City, Tokyo. Ishiguri described his impressions of Fujita, who called himself “Kim,” and Imamura, who called himself “Ralphie.
Ralphie was about to give up on carrying out [the robbery] when he heard the voices at the scene, but Kim wouldn’t give up, saying, ‘Do it today by all means.’ It was also Kim who put us on speakerphone during the raid and blasted, ‘Think of each one of you as the main character and do your best,’ so that everyone could hear. But I didn’t get excited when I heard him blasting.
You have to hit him to give him money.
Among a series of robbery cases, the “Hiroshima case” that resulted in serious injuries and the “Komae case” in Tokyo that resulted in deaths were particularly severe in terms of sentences. The trial revealed that a number of heinous instructions were sent from “Kim’s” account in these cases. Rikuto Nagata, who was the leader of the perpetrators of the two incidents and has already been sentenced to life imprisonment, also took the stand. Nagata testified to his communication with “Kim” in detail. It is as follows.
I won’t give you money unless you punch or kick me” (as he has done every time since the “Nakano Incident” in December 2010).
Kalpas-kun (Nagata’s telegram name), who came in late, will do it with a monkey wrench, so the other members should do it too. But please don’t kill them.
(Before the Hiroshima incident) “Again, there were no arrests, and the case is still in limbo. There is no progress in the investigation.
“She’s an old woman, so please do something so she won’t scream” (during the raid in the Komae case)
Please don’t kill me today. It would be bad if I had to kill you every time (laughs)” (later in the day of the Komae incident)
Nagata also stated that he and defendant Fujita “sometimes shared saga stories with each other on Telegram.
From “Kim’s” account, he said , “Overseas, you can be offered a knife during a transaction,” “Japanese people are so peaceful, aren’t they?” “It’s a world where you wake up and get stabbed. When Nagata received messages such as, “That’s why I always keep a chaka (pistol) under my bed,” he replied, “I keep a monkey wrench under my bed, too,” which got the crowd excited.
Fujita denied any partial involvement, stating that he had sent the messages on “Kim’s” account , “It was a company cell phone, so the boss (Watanabe) was also using it. As for his saga, he stated, “I have no saga to tell.
There were also many other discrepancies between Fujita’s and Nagata’s testimony. Regarding his relationship with the perpetrators, Fujita stated, “From around the time of the Chiba Incident (in January 2011), we became like informants, and it became difficult to tell which one of us was the instructor.
Distorted Relationship with the Executioner
Fujita, the instructor, and Nagata, the perpetrator, met in court for the first time. During the trial, there were scenes in which one could sense the strained relationship between the two. Nagata said of Fujita, “He is good at his job, smart, good at using people, and thorough in his planning. I admired him for the way he always handled things calmly. I wanted to be like him, too.” He revealed his feelings at the time, and after exchanging telegrams, “I thought he was a really kind person.
When asked by the judge about his feelings toward defendant Fujita, Nagata responded, “I thought the defendant (Fujita) was a very kind person.
He said, “Because of the defendant [Fujita], I am in this position. He killed and seriously injured people. But I am responsible for that, too, because I was on the scene. All I can say to the defendant is, ‘I’m sorry. Please do your best, no matter what the sentence is. To the victims, all I can say here is, ‘I’m sorry. I really can only say I’m sorry.”
Apart from the heinous instructions to the executioner, there is something else that the prosecution focuses on. It is the fact that Watanabe and Fujita were the only two defendants who managed the telegram chats regarding the organization’s incoming and outgoing payments after entering the Bicutan camp. In this regard, Fujita testified that he was told by his boss that it was only kept as a memo.
It was also revealed that after the Komae incident mentioned above, there was a plan to send a message to the perpetrators that they were members of JP DRAGON (a Japanese crime syndicate operating in the Philippines), in order to disrupt the investigation.
The initial purpose of the robberies was to raise funds to escape from Bicutan Camp to a foreign country. Fujita said, “One year before the robberies, I had already paid the escape money for myself and my boss. I was not in need of money. The boss was being targeted by the top officials in the Philippines, so I think he needed the “life money” to avoid being killed. He also stated that he had often urged Watanabe and Imamura to stop the robberies, but they did not listen. He maintained that he was simply following instructions.
Fujita concluded his trial by saying, ” I feel nothing but regret, remorse, and remorse.
I hope that those who are thinking of getting involved in black-market gambling will think about how much they have to lose, and stop before they commit a crime. We are truly sorry for this incident.”
The Rufi Group became the source of the “Anonymous and Fluid Crime Group” (a.k.a. Tokuryu). The words left in court by the directing and executing officers spoke of the threat of the burgeoning “Tokuryu.
Interview and text by： Shimei Kurita PHOTO： Shinji Hasuo