Osaka tax official arrested for setting up fake chikan train groping

Back in May we reported on the incredible story — actually one of the most intriguing things we have ever heard — of a chikan incident on a Wakayama train in which a woman was groped by two men who believed that the woman had asked them to do it via an online forum.

In fact, she had done no such thing and they had been set up. Her protests were more realistic than the two men expected and one got off the train. When the other man also attempted to leave at the end of the line, he was grabbed by the victim and arrested.

The 26-year-old from Osaka protested his innocence and the police soon started investigating what really happened.

Justice has now finally been served, it seems. An Osaka tax official has been arrested in Wakayama for posing as “Yui” on the forum and asking to be groped.

Yoji Isegawa, a senior official at the Osaka Regional Taxation Bureau’s Kainan office, began to sow the seeds of his plot. “Is there anyone willing to grope me?” is the message that “Yui” posted on April 23rd.

But the pièce de résistance was his victim. He saw a 23-year-old woman from Kinokawa, Wakayama, who would commute on the JR Wakayama Lane in the morning. He followed up by posting info on her appearance, where she sat on the train, and enthusiastic exhortations to come and grope “Yui.”

The 26-year-old man who was originally arrested had groped the woman’s thighs and stomach, but police later rightfully arrested him since he had been tricked into believing this was an elaborate but consensual act.

Forty-nine-year-old Isegawa will likely get a light sentence but his disgrace — to include certain sacking from his job — are assured.