Total Losses: 6 Billion Yen! Art Students, Sex Workers, Daughters of Prominent Families… The Women of the “Luffy Group” Who Shook the Nation

Prone to fraud

A series of wide-area robbery cases committed by the “Luffy Group” from ’22 to ’23. Even now, more than four years after the incidents occurred, the fraud and robberies they pioneered—using so-called “black-market part-time jobs”—continue unabated.

The specialized fraud organization led by Yuki Watanabe (38; ages are listed as of the time of arrest; references to “defendant” or “inmate” are omitted), who is considered the predecessor of the Ruffy Group, is believed to have had up to approximately 200 members, including female fraudsters.

Tomonobu Kojima (45), one of the Luffy Group’s top executives, stated the following to this reporter in a visiting room at Tokyo Detention Center:

“Women are better suited for fraud. Since the targets of our scam calls are mostly elderly men, they tend to let their guard down more easily when dealing with a young woman.In our group, there are virtually no ‘callers’ (those who make the scam calls to victims) whose monthly sales—that is, scam profits—fall below 10 million yen. When we hit a ‘jackpot’—someone likely to fall for the scam—it wasn’t uncommon for us to deliberately have a ‘female caller’ take over the call.”

There were just under 20 women in the Ruffy Group.How did “Rufi’s Women” become scammers and swindle such huge sums of money? Based on the contents of my new book, *Rufi in the Cage: The People Who Created the Dark Side of Part-Time Work* (Kodansha), published on June 24, I trace their life stories.

From art students to daughters of wealthy families to sex workers, the “female agents’” previous occupations varied widely.Some applied thinking they were signing up for resort jobs, while others—unable to pay off their tab at a host club—were sold to the organization for as little as 500,000 yen. What they all have in common is that they joined these underground jobs either to get money for fun or because of debt.

Female “kake-ko” were highly valued within the Luffy Group. As Kojima explains, one reason was that they were effective in making sales calls to the elderly. The second reason was that the boss, Watanabe, had a penchant for women.Watanabe, who had multiple mistresses in the Philippines—where the incidents took place—was not satisfied with that alone and devised the “Harem Plan” to specifically recruit female operatives. Although the plan ultimately fell through, Watanabe skillfully manipulated the women in his organization throughout the process.

For example, Chiaki Shibata (29), who was arrested in November 2019 on suspicion of theft in connection with a series of sophisticated fraud cases, was also one of Watanabe’s mistresses. On seven separate occasions, she packed cash—totaling approximately 300 million yen—that had been defrauded in Japan into suitcases and transported it to the Philippines.Her romantic feelings for the boss were the driving force behind her taking on this dangerous work.

The author has conducted repeated interviews with Risa Yamada (26), who defrauded the organization of approximately 600 million yen and called herself the “legendary runner.” Yamada, who transitioned from working as a sex worker to becoming a runner, was also deeply enamored with Watanabe and the other executives. Among the more than 400 letters Yamada wrote, there was a passage that read:

“The executives treated me very kindly, and I received lots of praise for meeting my quotas. I’d never had that kind of experience in my life, so I was truly happy. I thought Mr. Watanabe was the best boss in Japan.”

From a third-party perspective, it was clear that Yamada was nothing more than a disposable pawn to the executives. Even so, she viewed them as “comrades.”

The July 3 issue of *FRIDAY* (July 17 & 24 Combined Issue) and the paid version, *FRIDAY GOLD*, provide detailed reports on the backgrounds of Yamada and other female con artists who operated behind the scenes within the organization.

Click here to view the full article and multiple photos↓

From the July 17–24, 2026, combined issue of *FRIDAY*