<figure id="attachment_462866" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-462866" style="width: 2500px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="59caaec9"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2026/03/5409d44133bdb870b27d657b808855a8.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-462866" class="wp-caption-text">The test was positive. Cartridges of Etomidate were also seized from his home, and defendant Hazuki&#8217;s contract was terminated by Carp at the end of February.</figcaption></figure>
<h3> Why Zombie Cigarettes Are So Popular</h3>
<p> Police arrived on the scene in mid-December of last year after receiving a call. It was at the end of January, just before the start of camp, that he was taken into custody for violating the Pharmaceuticals and Medical Devices Act. It took more than a month to arrest Ryutaro Hatsuki, 25, a young baseball star of the Hiroshima Carp, because &#8220;it takes time to evaluate the etomidate.</p>
<p> When the first user of Etomidate was arrested in Tokyo in November last year, it took about six months for the evaluation, so the process has become faster. For methamphetamine, there are simple test kits like pregnancy tests that allow for emergency arrests, but since Etomidate is a newly introduced drug, a simple test kit has not yet been developed.</p>
<p> The only way is to submit the suspect&#8217;s urine to the Forensic Science Laboratory (Forensic Sci. Lab.) for official evaluation. And since the number of cases is increasing, it takes even more time. In Tokyo, there seems to be a large influx of etomidates in the jurisdiction of the Shibuya police station, and the field is having a hard time.</p>
<p> Fumitaka Obinamaki, 52, a former police lieutenant of the Metropolitan Police Department, joined the police in 1993. Until his retirement in 2011, he spent most of his 30-year career as an international investigator working against drugs and organized crime. Following last week&#8217;s &#8220;Entertainers&#8221; issue, we asked him about his offensive against illegal drug smuggling and other black market organizations.</p>
<div data-friday-ad-slot="AD_inArticle"></div>
<p> Etomidate is inexpensive to manufacture. I calculated that an e-cigarette liquid tank for smoking etomidate only holds about 10 ml, so it costs about 95 yen. There were case reports of it being sold on the black market for 3,000 yen.</p>
<p> Considering that the actual content is uncertain, it is clearly overpriced, and this is a &#8220;risk premium&#8221; (risk-bearing fee) unique to the illegal drug market. With the depreciation of the yen, methamphetamine has become a luxury item for the Japanese.</p>
<p> However, criminal organizations will not leave a &#8220;hole&#8221; where methamphetamine can no longer be sold. They bring in cheaper drugs such as etomidate to &#8220;fill the gap. I call this the &#8220;sliding drug economy phenomenon.</p>
<p> Whenever it was, there was a foreign drug dealer who tried to refine methamphetamine from cold medicines by taking advantage of the fact that over-the-counter cold medicines contain ingredients similar to methamphetamine.</p>
<p> The plan was leaked to the public and the dealer was arrested before the &#8220;cold medicine methamphetamine&#8221; became available. Over-the-counter drugs are inexpensive and the exchange rate is irrelevant, but methamphetamine is very delicate and if it is made in a strange way, its purity will be compromised. Even if it could have been purified, it would not have been sold.</p>
<p> High purity methamphetamine needs to be manufactured at plants (manufacturing facilities) in countries with low raw material and labor costs, and its flow into Japan is in the form of smuggling.</p>
<p> Criminal gangs come up with all kinds of smuggling methods. In the past, there was a &#8220;black methamphetamine&#8221; called &#8220;Kuroshabu. Methamphetamine was colored black, disguised as copier toner, and exported. The color is then removed and sold in Japan.</p>
<p> It is called the suction filtration method, in which a vacuum is forced through a filter. The extracted liquid is then boiled to evaporate and recrystallize it, a process called precipitation, to return it to its original white color. Both the reputation and the price drop.</p>
<p> You may all know that &#8220;S&#8221; refers to an informant, as it appears in detective dramas these days, but for me, &#8220;S&#8221; was a person from a foreign investigative agency.</p>
<div data-friday-ad-slot="AD_inArticle"></div>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> I would get a call from &#8220;S&#8221; saying something like, &#8220;On what day of what month, on what flight, in what container, there is methamphetamine disguised as toner.</span></p>
<p> When I checked it at customs, it did indeed show a methamphetamine reaction.</p>
<p> However, nothing is done there. There are two types of CDs: live controlled delivery (LCD), in which the smuggled methamphetamine is distributed as it is and the person who comes to receive it at the delivery point is arrested; and clean controlled delivery (CCD), in which the smuggled methamphetamine is distributed as it is and the person who comes to receive it at the delivery point is arrested.</p>
<p> In Clean Controlled Delivery (CCD), the contents are replaced with salt and the rest is the same process. Most of the large smuggling cases we found at the customs took either of these methods. I was part of the team that conducted the first CD investigation in Japan.</p>
<p> Recently, we have started to use the method of sending the goods to an empty house as the delivery address, and people who have nothing to do with the house receive the goods.</p>
<div data-friday-nextpage-lead=" Illegal Drugs have also been used by the elite class."></div>
<h3>The Elites Use Drugs, Too!</h3>
<p> In &#8217;15, a female Toyota Motor Corp. executive was arrested on suspicion of importing the banned drug oxycodone. It was Mr. Kobikami who arrested her at the hotel where she was staying.</p>
<p> We had no prior information, but customs found it and reported it to us. A team of about 20 people consisting of customs and the Metropolitan Police Department went to the hotel and arrested the female officer, but as a result, no charges were filed.</p>
<p> The female officer was an American, and oxycodone is legal in the United States. And she works for Toyota. I knew that it would be difficult to bring an indictment when weighed against the national interest, but we couldn&#8217;t afford to cut corners in the field, so we did our best to investigate.</p>
<div data-friday-ad-slot="AD_inArticle"></div>
<p> Last September, Suntory Holdings held an emergency press conference to announce the resignation of Takeshi Niinami, 67, as chairman, and that Niinami was under investigation by the Fukuoka Prefectural Police over supplements that were suspected of being illegal. This was also initiated by customs.</p>
<p> A man residing in the prefecture was arrested after customs officials in Mojiko, Fukuoka, found supplements containing marijuana ingredients exceeding the standard values that had come in from the United States. The man&#8217;s statement led to the surfacing of Niinami&#8217;s name and a search of his house, but no illegal drugs were found, and a urine test was negative.</p>
<div data-friday-ad-slot="AD_inArticle"></div>
<p> Some overseas criminal organizations deal directly with Japanese gangs at sea and elsewhere, without going through high-risk customs. A North Korean spy ship that caused a stir in the past by engaging in a shootout with a Japan Coast Guard patrol boat had as one of its objectives the &#8220;smuggling of illegal drugs to obtain foreign currency.</p>
<p> The master we arrested in the &#8220;black shabu&#8221; investigation I mentioned earlier was pulling methamphetamine from North Korea. He went to the coast of Hokuriku at night and flicked a searchlight toward the sea at the appointed place.</p>
<p> For an hour or two. Then a North Korean submarine surfaced, and &#8220;I handed over the product to a man with a rifle,&#8221; says Oyabun. He drew a picture of it, and it was an AK-47.</p>
<div class="expapp-no-provided-scope expapp-no-provided-scope-start"></div>
<p><a href="https://friday.kodansha.co.jp/article/462869" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> Click here for the second part of the article by Fumitaka Obinamaki, 52, a former police lieutenant of the Metropolitan Police Department, about foreign spies infiltrating Japan and the 400 million yen case in Ueno.</a></p>
<div class="expapp-no-provided-scope expapp-no-provided-scope-end"></div>
<figure id="attachment_462862" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-462862" style="width: 2500px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="e1333c7b"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2026/03/50c8a613e8b9a514469f50c6de5270ff.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-462862" class="wp-caption-text"> Cartridges of Etomidate and suction apparatus seized in Osaka in February this year. Originally a sedative, it is also called &#8220;zombie tobacco&#8221; because it causes unconsciousness and convulsions in the arms and legs when taken in excess.</figcaption></figure>
<figure id="attachment_462865" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-462865" style="width: 1841px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="6351ad48"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2026/03/31f90b3a470d955219614acdc1b104a2.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-462865" class="wp-caption-text"> Although Niinami maintains his innocence, he resigned as president of the Keizai Doyukai (Japan Association of Corporate Executives) in September of last year, citing the &#8220;public uproar&#8221; he caused as a result of the police investigation.</figcaption></figure>
<p> From the April 10, 2026 issue of FRIDAY</p>


 Kyodo News Images / Jiji Press (2nd) Nikkan Kogyo Shimbun / Kyodo News Images (3rd)

 Zombie cigarettes" are rapidly expanding due to the high price of methamphetamine. The methods of smuggling and selling these drugs are becoming more sophisticated every year. Fumitaka Obirimaki, a former police lieutenant of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department, talks about the dark side of the drug business.

Brain Battle with Criminal Organizations&#8221; Stop the Smuggling of Illegal Drugs..! A former assistant inspector of the Metropolitan Police Department&#8217;s Narcotics G-men confesses with his real name and face.

Brain Battle with Criminal Organizations” Stop the Smuggling of Illegal Drugs..! A former assistant inspector of the Metropolitan Police Department’s Narcotics G-men confesses with his real name and face.

Access Ranking