[ad_1]
A shady organization threatening its participants with physical harm if they don’t do as they’re told sounds like a plot from a movie. But it’s reality for many young Japanese people who fall in with the wrong crowd. Former beauty pageant contestant Kumai Hitomi found herself in that situation when she got caught up in the Luffy crime ring.
Commit fraud for us, or your family gets it
I’ve been listening to Liar’s Jenga (嘘つきジェンガ), a collection of short stories by author Tsujimura Mizuki. Western fans may know her for her wonderful book The Lonely Castle in the Mirror (note: affiliate link). In this work, Tsujimura tells tales of people who either perpetrate or become the victims of fraud – a common and growing problem in Japan.
The title story centers on Kaga Yota, a college student trapped in his apartment during the pandemic. When a friend says he has a way for Yota to make money by selling stuff to people on Facebook, Yota jumps at the opportunity. He soon learns he’s part of a romance fraud ring that suckers lonely women out of their money.
When he tries to quit, his mysterious “boss” – who calls him on a burner – tells Yota they know where his parents live. If you don’t want to bring shame and embarrassment on them, he says, you’ll do what we tell you.
Tsujimura’s story is just a story. But it’s one grounded in current events. We’ve written before about how criminals in Japan are increasingly using the young to do their dirty work. If the hired help tries to get out, these gangs don’t hesitate to use threats and coercion to keep them in.
It was, by all accounts, a favorite tactic of Japan’s notorious Luffy crime ring.
Advertisements
The Luffy crime ring
“Luffy”, the iconic character from the manga One Piece, was one of the code names participants used to refer to one of the masterminds behind the criminal enterprise. In 2022, the group pulled off a daring watch robbery in Kyoto, netting some 70 million yen (USD $461,048) in goods.
But it didn’t stop there. The group’s activities netted some 6 billion yen ($35 million) between 2018 and 2022 alone. Its leaders operated from Thailand and then from the Philippines, using social media to recruit workers who would commit fraud and carry out thefts on their behalf.
Police arrested dozens of operatives and even some of the top brass. But the group managed to keep operating – sometimes with its bosses issuing orders from a Filipino prison.
Between 2022 and 2023, Luffy committed 13 robberies across Japan, netting tens of millions of yen per hit. It made news in January 2023 when one group of thieves bound and beat a 90-year-old woman in her home in Komae, Tokyo. She subsequently died of her injuries. The ensuing public outcry and police crackdown led to the extradition of some of the group’s key ringleaders from the Philippines back to Japan to face charges.
From Miss Contests to papakatsu
A new book from weekly magazine Shukan Spa, The Children of Luffy (ルフィの子供たち), chronicles the lives of some of the young people that the group coerced into a life of crime. One of them was 25-year-old Kumai Hitomi.
Those who knew Kumai in her college years described her as a “shy” person who didn’t put herself out much in the world. That changed after she entered Miss Fresh Campus, a “Miss Contest” (beauty contest) at her arts school. Friends say she spent more time putting herself out on social media. The more time she spent on socials, the more her studies suffered.
After failing to win (but making it to the finals), Kumai took to broadcasting on SHOWROOM, a live-streaming site, where fans would give her gifts and leave tips. She also began seeking dates via sugar daddy (papakatsu, パパ活)-style arrangements. She developed an affinity for high-end brand fashion.
Pulled into the Luffy “family”
Not long after the Miss Fresh Campus contest, Kumai vanished from campus. In October 2019, says Shukan Spa, Kumai found herself pulled into the world of Luffy.
A friend S, who’d worked as a “catch” (a person who brings customers into bars & sex establishments in Japan), pinged her via direct message on social media. After failing to interest her in working as a cabaret club girl, S told her he had a lucrative job for her in the Philippines, making outbound sales calls for his father’s company. He told her some people made up to a million yen (USD $6,580) a month in this line of work.
Despite doubts about whether this gig was on the up-and-up, Kumai flew to the Philippines. When she got to the call center, she heard rough-looking men identifying themselves as police on the phone and issuing threats to their callees.
Kumai, the book says, tried to back out. she asked to go back to Japan. Then, one of the ringleaders of the Luffy group called her.
“We know where you live, ya know,” he threatened.
Kumai understood this for what it was: a threat against her family.
Kumai worked alongside another woman, 28-year-old Terashima Haruna. According to News Post Seven, the group took away both women’s travel documents and showed them videos of alleged runaways having their ears cut off. That was enough to convince both women to stay put.
Chances to escape
While she was initially pressured into working for Luffy, Kumai had a few chances to flee from the group. Unfortunately, at each turn, she refused to take advantage of them.
The nature of her work meant that the group furnished her with a cell phone. She used it to call her mother, who got wind of the nature of the work her daughter had been dragged into.
“Don’t tell anyone,” Kumai begged her.
In November 2019, Philippine police raided the abandoned hotel Luffy used as its headquarters. They arrested 36 other workers. While she evaded arrest, she faced a choice: Stay with the group or go to the cops and confess.
Kumai elected to stay with the group.
Kumai rose in the group’s ranks, joining another team led by Fujita Kairi (24). The two quickly kindled a relationship while Kumai worked with her “colleagues” as a kakeko (かけ子), the part of a fraud team that dials victims and tricks them into handing over their money.
The end of a long “vacation”
Kumai Hitomi worked this job for a year and a half. Then, in March 2021, she got word that Philippine authorities had arrested her “boss” and other high-ranking members of the Luffy group.
Kumai and Fujita say they were relieved they could stop committing fraud. However, they weren’t in any hurry to surrender to authorities back in Japan. To the contrary, the two spent two years acting as tourists in the Philippines.
Kumai refuses to specify what she and Fujita did during this extended holiday. What’s clear is that they saw remaining free as more important than returning home to account for the damage they’d helped cause.
Surprisingly, they got away with it. For a while. But then, the Komae murder brought international attention to the remnants of the Luffy group. Japan pressured Filipino authorities to crack down on the vestiges of the crime ring.
That brought an end to Kumai and Fujita’s long vacations. Police arrested the pair in a private home rental not long after. By this time, Kumai was pregnant with Fujita’s child.
A light sentence, an unknown future
Filipino authorities extradited the two to Japan, where they faced charges for their crimes. Prosecutors asked that the court sentence Kumai to four years. The court gave her two.
The pair were responsible for up to 6 million yen ($39,000) in fraud-related losses. Kumai’s older sister is bearing the brunt of that in the form of repayment and settlement fees.
Kumai gave birth during her trial. The courts let her stay free to care for her baby until the verdict. Kumai has pled with the court for an early parole to be with her child. The court’s denied that request.
There’s no doubt Kumai Hitomi found herself trapped in a terrible situation. However, life also gave her several chances to back out and return to civil society. Who knows how things might have gone differently if she’d taken one of them?
Sources
「ミスコン出場後、パパ活もはじめて…」ルフィ強盗団の“お嬢さま”熊井ひとみ容疑者（25）の“変貌”と逮捕された同居男性(24)の“チャラすぎる素顔”とは. Bunshun Online
共犯者と交際し妊娠→逮捕→拘置所で出産…ミスコンに出場した“ルフィ強盗団のお嬢さま”（25）が、特殊詐欺グループから逃け出さなかったワケ. Bunshun Online (via Yahoo! News)
【ルフィ強盗団・熊井ひとみ被告】「赤ちゃんの声も聞こえるようになった」近隣住民が明かす現在の生活ぶり. News Post Seven
ルフィ広域強盗事件. Wikipedia JP
【ルフィ強盗団・熊井ひとみ被告】「赤ちゃんの声も聞こえるようになった」近隣住民が明かす現在の生活ぶり. News Post Seven
[ad_2]
Source link