“We Targeted Disabled People With Money Living at Home”: Inside the Cunning Tactics of a Shibuya Scam Group

Using an app for people understanding of disabilities

On September 17, the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department’s Security Division re-arrested former bar owner Musashi Izawa (25) on suspicion of fraud and violating the Tokyo Metropolitan Ordinance to Prevent Rip-Offs. He is suspected of abusing a dating app to lure men with disabilities to a bar in Shibuya, Tokyo, and making them pay exorbitant food and drink bills.

“Izawa was arrested on April 1 this year on suspicion of defrauding two men in their 20s of a large amount of cash after luring them to a bar in Dogenzaka, Shibuya Ward, and claiming the money was for food and drinks and cancellation fees. He has been repeatedly re-arrested since then.

In the latest case, he is suspected of having lured two men in their 20s to the bar in February 2025: one was visually impaired and the other had a physical disability. They had met women in Izawa’s group through a dating app, who then invited them to the bar and charged them exorbitant amounts for food and drinks. The two men were defrauded of ¥684,000 and ¥2,427,600, respectively, for a combined total of approximately ¥3.11 million.

The Tokyo Metropolitan Police believe Izawa was the leader of a group that repeatedly carried out rip-off schemes using dating apps, operating out of this bar, and estimate the total amount of damages from the series of incidents at approximately ¥85 million.

Members of the group have reportedly told investigators something to the effect of, ‘We targeted people with disabilities because they lived with their parents and had money.’ Izawa has denied the allegations, saying things such as, ‘I don’t remember how I was involved.’” (National newspaper crime reporter)

An investigative journalist covering the case says:

“The company employee who was victimized had been visually impaired since birth and used a white cane in his daily life. He began using a dating app for people with disabilities and those who were understanding of disabilities because he wanted to meet someone, and he had also disclosed his disability in his profile.

In early February 2025, the company employee met a woman one year younger than him who called herself ‘Risa’ through the app. Risa designated Shibuya as their meeting place and invited him to the bar where the incident took place, saying, ‘I want to go to a place I’ve been interested in.’

A bar employee explained that the all-you-can-drink plan cost ¥5,000 per person. But Risa then suggested a game in which he had to guess the number on a playing card, and if he got it wrong, he had to drink alcohol as a penalty. He reportedly had fun and ended up drinking a little too much. Then about two hours later, the amount the staff told him was ¥542,000. The reason the bill was so high was that he had been drinking alcohol that was not included in the all-you-can-drink plan.”

Rip-off bars are also becoming Tokuryu-style criminal organizations

Naturally, the company employee did not have that kind of money on hand, so he was accompanied by a bar employee to a convenience-store ATM. He withdrew ¥200,000 twice and then another ¥140,000 to pay the bill. Just when he thought he would finally be allowed to leave, the bar employee reportedly came after him.

“The employee told him, ‘There was a mistake in the calculation. We need you to pay another ¥142,000,’ so the company employee went back to the ATM. In the end, he paid ¥684,000. The next day, his coworkers pointed out that he might have been the victim of a rip-off, so he consulted the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department. He reportedly stopped hearing from Risa after that.”

Since around September 2024, there had been a series of cases in Shibuya in which people were taken to establishments by women they had met through dating apps and then subjected to exorbitant bills. The Tokyo Metropolitan Police had been investigating the cases. Izawa is believed to have been a leader of the rip-off group.

The investigative journalist quoted earlier points out that this case was an organized crime.

“In the past, the typical rip-off bar operation involved touts waiting near the establishment and luring unsuspecting passersby inside. Recently, however, groups have begun searching for targets through social media and dating apps, dividing the work among people responsible for luring victims, working as staff at the bar, and collecting payments. Members are recruited through social media, and the person giving orders and those at the bottom of the hierarchy do not even need to meet face-to-face.

Izawa’s group also divided up the work and reportedly communicated through Telegram, an encrypted messaging app with a high level of anonymity. In some cases, members did not even know each other’s real names, and it appears that the group had members compete against one another based on their sales.

The Tokyo Metropolitan Police had viewed Izawa’s group as an anonymous, fluid criminal group, or ‘Tokuryu,’ from a relatively early stage. Rather than saying that ‘Tokuryu was behind the rip-off bars,’ it would be more accurate to say that rip-off schemes themselves are becoming a form of Tokuryu-style organized crime.”

One particularly notable aspect of this case is that the group is believed to have used a dating app specifically aimed at people with disabilities to search for targets. They targeted vulnerable people, lured them into the establishment, and, when their cash ran out, allegedly demanded that they borrow money from consumer finance companies to make further payments. With Tokuryu-style groups becoming involved, traditional rip-off schemes are increasingly taking the form of more serious and malicious crimes.

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