Tidbits
Police Lethargy Reaches Alarming Levels - Japanese police have been strongly criticized in recent years for lack of investigative capability, lethargy and mostly relying the extraction of confessions as the number of cases of police malpractice becomes alarming. In October 1998, a female student was stabbed to death by her former boyfriend in Okegawa, Saitama after police ignored her complaints that she was being stalked. Police later falsified their records to appear as if the woman had not made a formal criminal complaint. In December, 1999 the parents of a 19-year-old boy who reported him abducted were told by police, "We will not act unless it becomes a criminal case." The boy was later found strangled to death after a one-month-long period of tormenting by a group of teenagers who had forced him to take out loans to pay ´7 million to them. In May 2000 a gang of boys were able to extort ´55 million yen from a 15-year-old boy during a period where police ignored please from his mother to put a stop to it.
No time for looking at videos - A 30-year-old Japanese female became involved in a brief scuffle with a drunken middle-aged Japanese male on the Toyoko Line train car. When bystanders pulled them apart, the man took advantage of the opportunity to deliver a blow to the woman's face thereby breaking her nose. He then exited the train quickly at Daikanyama Station with no bystanders even making an attempt to stop him. An hour later the victim and her husband were in the Naka Meguro Police Station and dumbfounded to hear the police refuse to show the victim the videotape from the station platform where the man exited the train. The Naka Meguro police did not even make an attempt to retrieve the videotape from the train station.
"Black Money Scam Hits Japan," as the headline in The Japan Times recently read, The story, which was released by police and carried by all the major daily newspapers, went on to describe how several people had been arrested for carrying out a scam where they fooled greedy victims into thinking that dyed scraps of paper were $100 U.S. bills that had been made black in order to smuggle them out of an African country under turbulent political conditions. The victims were then conned into buying the money at a reduced value and buying some chemicals as well to remove the black ink.
Black money scam did not just "hit Japan." It has been in Japan for at least four years. According to Tokyo-based security specialist Antonio Ferreira, victims of the scam have been coming to him since 1996, and he had repeatedly reported the matter on deaf ears to Japanese police and U.S. Treasury officials at the Embassy in Tokyo. Ferreira said, "Shinjuku cops, Shibuya cops, Takanawa cops... they all gave my clients the finger and did nothing saying it was just as much their fault because they were greedy," and "U.S. Treasury officials prefer the comfort of the embassy compound to going out on the streets and looking for fraud being carried out with U.S. currency." In total Ferreira said he has represented five victims of the advanced-fee scam and two victims of the black money scam, including victims of the people recently arrested. According to Ferreira, "The current arrests were only the tip of the iceberg and too little too late. Those guys were merely 'mules' for a well-organized Nigerian fraud ring headed up here in Tokyo by Bethrand Oparaji." Oparaji is president of Kenz-Briz Corporation with a mostly empty office located in Shibuya Ward's Maruyama-cho, and Ferreira said Oparaji has been behind a multitude of money scams, drug trafficking and trading in counterfeit brand name goods in Japan over many years with amazing ease and apparent immunity from the police. In spite of Oparaji having made numerous death threats to Ferreira since 1996, Japanese police have continually ignored these crimes, ostensibly because Oparaji has paid for local yakuza protection, which often equates to immunity from the police.
Azabu Chief of Police clarification - In the May 2000 edition of Japan Traveler we reported that the Azabu Chief of Police had been harassing and making short-term arrests of Roppongi bar owners not cooperating with the local yakuza. According to our sources, the person in question was named, Hiroshi Kawahara and served as the Azabu Chief of Police in 1999 before he was transferred out amidst a storm of complaints against him. Japan Traveler has not received any reports of misconduct by the current Azabu Chief of Police, Fusanori Matsumoto.
SPECIAL
FEATURE
Human Rights Falling
Through the Cracks in Japan
Japan "Justice" Ministry tearing Japanese children apart from gaijin dad