Five “part-time workers in the dark” arrested on suspicion of preliminary robbery… Concerns that the quality of their work is declining and that they will become more violent and aggressive.

Toward the camera, “Bakun!”

A little past 9:00 in the morning of April 15. Yu Yamaguchi, 20, a suspect with dreadlocks who was on his way from the Wangan Police Station of the Metropolitan Police Department to the prosecutor’s office, was for some reason having a great time in the car. He was playing finger hearts and sticking out his lips in the shape of a “chu,” or closing one eye and holding both hands in the shape of a pistol and doing a “ba-qun. What made her so happy was that she kept performing in front of the press cameras.

Influencer Takizawa Galeso posted the scene on X with the comment, “[Sad news] Mr. Yami Baito looks too stupid. Writer/YouTuber Junji Urita also took to X, bluntly stating, “The intelligence of the young people who take part in the black market job is low. It was a nationwide disgrace. Why was he arrested?

Around 9:30 on the morning of the 13th, five young men were hanging out in a coin-operated parking lot in a row of multi-tenant buildings in Ueno (Taito Ward), Tokyo. A police officer became suspicious and asked them, ‘What are you doing? The men rushed to get into their car and tried to flee, but the police officer stopped them. When they questioned the men, they found a crowbar, a fruit knife, tear gas, a blindfold, and masks in the car.

Arrested on preliminary robbery charges were Yamaguchi, Keisuke Sanada, 46, and three juveniles, all of whom have unknown addresses and occupations. Some of the suspects stated that they “got together to commit a robbery” and “planned to receive a reward,” and it is believed that they planned to rob a rental office in a nearby building, including communication via smartphone.

At 7:30 a.m. on the morning of the 15th, the airport police also sent Sanada, another suspect, to the airport police station; the five suspects are believed to have joined a car that left Osaka on the 13th one after another on the road, using the highly confidential communication app “Signal. The police are investigating the suspects as they are believed to be an anonymous fluid crime group (Tokuryu) with an instructor on top.

It’s possible they’re just taking a wait-and-see approach.”

There were 12,178 Tokluk suspects uncovered in ’25, a 20% increase over the previous year. Young people under the age of 30 accounted for 60% of these. Of these, 304 were picked up for robbery, a decrease of 44. Even as an impression, there is an image that black market robbery has calmed down a bit since the arrest of the perpetrators of the Metropolitan Area serial robbery in ’24. However, underworld journalist Yukio Ishihara warns that this is not because it has been eradicated.

Recently, when I meet people from the underworld for interviews, I am often asked, ‘Will the remaining three suspects in the Rufi case be executed or not? In February, one of the ringleaders, Fujita, was sentenced to life imprisonment by the first trial court, but they seem to be focusing on what will happen to the other three.

Therefore, the reason why the number of black market robberies, which used to occur several times a week at one time, has recently been on the decline is because people in the center, such as those in charge of giving orders, have been asking themselves, “What will happen if I get caught? What will happen if they are caught?

Investigation methods have evolved rapidly over the past three years. In the past, it was enough to “cut off the lizard’s tail” of the people at the end of the line, but recently, recruiters and instructors have been caught as well. So, the “doers” must be aware of the risk of arrest before they can do anything. I believe that the verdicts of the remaining three “ruffians” will be the difference between whether or not the number of “black job” robberies will decrease in the future.

Will they become more rabid and vicious in the future?

The reason for the poor performance of the “black market” workers who were caught before they could cause a crime is that “the quality of people hired as black market workers has generally declined.

The black market is a pawn at the end of the line, so the more stupid they are, the easier it is to use them. The picture is all drawn at the top, so it is more convenient to have people who do not act on their own initiative, but only do what they are told. If an idiot is told to hit an elderly person, he will do so with impunity. You can’t hit them if they think for themselves. But if they are too stupid, they don’t mind not coming to the job site because ‘the slingshot is hit,’ etc., so that’s a problem.

In the past, recruiters used to be able to properly identify such people, but from about ’24, the number of special fraud cases increased, and they started to recruit more and more people. Until then, the recruiters were people who had done the end of the line work and had something to offer, but suddenly there were people who were hired as recruiters. The level of recruiters was going down. It is possible that these people are hiring more and more people they would not have hired before.

It can be said that the crime was stopped before it happened this time because the perpetrators were not “able to run away with it,” but on the other hand, there is a frightening aspect to this.

When the three representatives of the Tsubasa Party were arrested in May of two years ago, they were smiling and doing a double peace, and since then, I think such cases have increased. The member of Natural who was arrested last November also raised his middle finger with both hands, and perhaps there is something about doing something that stands out at the sending-off that tugs at the heartstrings of some people.

But what I am afraid of is that, as in the robbery cases in Komae City and Aoba Ward, Yokohama City, where there were fatalities, idiots will hit elderly people in the face with a crowbar as hard as they can if they are told to hit them. It doesn’t matter if they are not allowed to die before getting the PIN number. As the number of such extreme idiots increases at the scene of the crime, there is a fear that the crime itself will become more and more violent and heinous. If the people who were caught this time had carried out the robbery, it is quite possible that they would have caused deaths even if their goal was money or jewelry.

The crimes committed by the black market criminals are becoming increasingly violent and heinous.

FRIDAY Digital welcomes your information and tip-offs. Please send your information to the following information form or to the official X.

Information form: https://friday.kodansha.co.jp/tips
Official X: https://x.com/FRIDAY_twit