<h3>Top executive Hiroaki Obata, chairman of the board, was arrested in a persistent investigation!</h3>
<figure id="attachment_458295" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-458295" style="width: 1952px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="706d4292"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2026/02/8b57169819a53ef7b6a594f2864c177b-1.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-458295" class="wp-caption-text"> The suspect Obata was transported to the Itabashi Police Station in Tokyo. He covered his face with a hood and did not show his face to the press at all.</figcaption></figure>
<h3> The past and true face of the head of &#8220;Natural</h3>
<p> The top of &#8220;Natural&#8221; was captured at once by an electric shock. The illegal scout group &#8220;Natural&#8221; has about 2,000 members, mainly young people, and is called the largest and most powerful (the most dangerous) group in Japan. Its leader, Hiroaki Obata, 40, has been arrested by the Anti-Gang Division of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department. He was hiding out on Amami Oshima Island in Kagoshima Prefecture, 1,200 km away from Kabukicho, Tokyo, where Natural&#8217;s main activities take place.</p>
<p> Natural is an &#8220;anonymous and liquid criminal group (Tokuryu)&#8221; that has routes to introduce women to brothels in almost every downtown area in Japan, and receives &#8220;scout backs (introduction fees)&#8221; from the brothels, which is illegal under the revised Entertainment Establishments Control Law.</p>
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<p> The FRIDAY team has been following this mysterious organization for nearly two years, and has reported three times on the bizarre way in which it is organized as if it were an ordinary company.</p>
<p> This report details the behind-the-scenes of the summit operation that put the prestige of the police on the line.</p>
<p> What kind of person is the suspect Obata? The police authorities&#8217; investigative documents, which we obtained independently, refer to him as &#8220;Chairman Kiyama,&#8221; so we will refer to him as &#8220;Chairman&#8221; in this report. His background is as follows.</p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> The founder of Natural was a man named Kiyama, who has since repeatedly changed his name and now goes by an alias. He started his scouting career around &#8217;06, gaining experience as a scout for a group called Lancôme in Tachikawa. Around 2009, he moved to the entertainment district of Kabukicho in Shinjuku and gradually increased his group of scouts, and began calling himself and others &#8220;Natural.</span></p>
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<p> A person in the underworld who knows who they are says, &#8220;They used to say, &#8216;I&#8217;ve been a member of all the breeding grounds in the country.</p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> They have been saying for a long time, &#8216;We will conquer every downtown area in the country! He was always saying, &#8216;We&#8217;re going to conquer every downtown area in the country! He was just a very high-spirited person.</span></p>
<p> He sometimes showed a violent side.</p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> When he was young,&#8221; he said, &#8220;he would say, &#8216;Yakuza are nothing,&#8217; and he would make the gangsters bow down to him without backing down. Nowadays, he is less likely to take action himself, but his philosophy of domination by violence has not changed, such as circulating videos of young members being beaten up by the executives,&#8221; said a current member.</span></p>
<div data-friday-nextpage-lead=" Police officers are furious."></div>
<figure id="attachment_458298" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-458298" style="width: 1601px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="94c7cbd9"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2026/02/e96d6c48ebe06301aeda551fe3d0897d-1.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-458298" class="wp-caption-text">A recent photograph was also disclosed at the time of the public arrangement. He has remained silent when questioned by the Metropolitan Police Department, saying, &#8220;I won&#8217;t talk about anything right now.&#8221;</figcaption></figure>
<h3> The &#8220;Three-Year Road&#8221; to Operation Summit</h3>
<p> It was not until February 2011 that the police began a full-scale effort to expose Natural. They discovered that a group of members had violated the rules, assaulted them, and held them captive for eight days. The victim was subjected to a humiliating act in which an adult toy was shoved up her anus and the act was filmed.</p>
<p> Since the Natural was expanding in size as a Tokuru-type organization, the police stepped up their crackdown.</p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> Like the mafia overseas, they have thorough internal controls anyway. There is a &#8216;violent apparatus&#8217; within the organization, and they do not tolerate information leaks or betrayal. The lynching incident is just one example. Furthermore, they have human resources who are the brains of the organization, such as spending tens of millions of yen to develop their own black-market application for communication. The connection between the end of the line and the executives is cut off, and no matter how many low-level people you catch, you can&#8217;t get to the upper echelons.</span></p>
<p> As the investigation progressed, the relationship with the gang also came to light. The following description is found in the investigation documents.</p>
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<p><span class="strongInContent"> It has been confirmed that the gangsters, who had been in conflict with each other, made peace and began to cooperate with each other, and that they paid him a protection fee in exchange for his scouting activities. The group refers to the police as &#8220;viruses&#8221; and &#8220;professionals,&#8221; and in order to avoid law enforcement, they have their members use their source names while keeping their real names secret. It is an antisocial organization with a secret society aspect, taking thorough measures against the police.</span></p>
<p> In the spring of 2012, a full-fledged investigation team led by the Anti-Gang Division was established in the Metropolitan Police Department to clarify and expose the organization.</p>
<p> Meanwhile, several witnesses have confirmed that until about six months before his arrest, the chairman had been dining out at restaurants in Tokyo and sometimes went shopping alone at brand-name stores. They say that he never showed the slightest sense of danger, such as by talking to familiar store clerks. The current member mentioned above says, &#8220;Of course we were on the alert, but it seems that he was out and about downtown until about last summer.</p>
<p> It is believed that behind the margin of comfort that they had shown so far was the existence of an &#8220;S (spy)&#8221; inside the police department.&#8221; In January 2013, the Metropolitan Police Department moved to arrest all the executives, including the chairman, at once, but came up empty. The information of the investigation was completely &#8220;lost&#8221; on the natural side. In fact, in November of last year, a police lieutenant who was a member of the investigation team was arrested and charged with violating the Local Public Service Act for leaking inside information. Nine million yen in cash, believed to be part of his reward, was found at his home.</p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> The incident infuriated senior police officials, including those at the SATCHO (National Police Agency). The arrest of the chairman became a top priority.</span></p>
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<p> In November of last year, the Metropolitan Police Department issued a nationwide manhunt for the chairman. The suspect was charged with violating the Tokyo Metropolitan Government&#8217;s Violent Exclusion Ordinance by paying 600,000 yen in cash to a wide-area crime syndicate in exchange for permission for Natural to scout in the downtown area of Shibuya, Tokyo. As the investigative team, including backup, was increased to narrow the siege, a trump card measure was also taken.</p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> Over the course of the year, meetings were held frequently by senior police officials. In the course of these meetings, they decided to disclose their portraits to the public in order to get the public to cooperate with them.</span></p>
<p> On January 21 of this year, the police launched an open investigation, which is extremely unusual for this type of crime. Ten thousand wanted posters were distributed nationwide. The chairman&#8217;s face was widely reported on TV and other media. His arrest on Amami Oshima Island came five days later.</p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> We received a report that a person resembling him had been staying at a hotel in Amami since the end of the year, and on the same day we sent more than a dozen investigators to the area to investigate. He was disguised as a man with a beard and glasses with no glasses, but he looked just like the person in the wanted photograph&#8221; (investigator).</span></p>
<p> Around October of last year, the investigation team received a report of a sighting at a seaside hotel in Aichi Prefecture. After that, he is believed to have been moving from place to place in western Japan, including the Kansai region, and from December 21, he moved his base to Amami Oshima.</p>
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<p><a href="https://friday.kodansha.co.jp/article/458310"> Part 2: Illegal scout group &#8220;Natural&#8221; vs. police authorities&#8217; &#8220;endless exposures&#8221;: the latest developments after the arrest of the top scout</a></p>
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<figure id="attachment_458470" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-458470" style="width: 1318px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="6f50f2b1"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2026/02/42b58d301f1c1ec85fc98c4c1bc6ce88-1.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-458470" class="wp-caption-text"> Natural&#8217;s dedicated app shares information on how to handle early morning arrests. Not informing the whole group about the arrest of the Chairman so as not to upset them.</figcaption></figure>
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<figure id="attachment_458466" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-458466" style="width: 1362px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="2a8a0ddd"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2026/02/fc7284021fb9886b5e2e76b211e9205b.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-458466" class="wp-caption-text"> Latest book &#8220;Predation: The Dark Side of the Tokuryu-type Crime Group &#8220;Natural&#8221; that Turns Desire into Money&#8221; (Kodansha), which provides a complete picture of Natural, is now on sale.</figcaption></figure>

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<p> From the February 20/27, 2026 issue of FRIDAY</p>


 A new type of reporting and information team consisting of people from the media, bureaucracy, and political circles. Their latest book, "Predation: The Dark Side of Natural, a Tokuryu-type Crime Group That Turns Desire into Money" (Kodansha), will be released on February 12.

 Nihonbashi Group*.

 Shinji Hasuo (1st) Jiji Press (2nd)

 Hiroaki Obata, 40, the head of the illegal scout group "Natural," was arrested by the Anti-Gang Division of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department. We will look into Obata's mysterious past and true face, as well as the "Operation Summit," which was a show of force for the police.

 In-Depth Scoop Report Part 1

Illegal Scouting Group &#8220;Natural&#8221; vs. Police Authorities &#8220;Blitzkrieg Summit Operation&#8221; and &#8220;The Real Face of Chairman Obata

Illegal Scouting Group “Natural” vs. Police Authorities “Blitzkrieg Summit Operation” and “The Real Face of Chairman Obata

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