Police arrest brokers for prostitutes at around 100 brothels

Police have arrested four people on charges of criminally profiting off acting as go-betweens for women and brothels.

In the latest example of a general police crackdown on such brokers, 42-year-old Kazunori Inoue, who runs a beauty salon in Higashinari ward, Osaka, was arrested along with three accomplices, including a 30-year-old Korean-Japanese who runs a dispatching services company. They are suspected of hiding around ¥3.2 million of income, which came from fees gained for illegally introducing women to a brothel in Hiroshima between March and October last year.

Park, who was already arrested on another charge, is accused of acting as a scout for over 30 women. With Inoue, they allegedly made fraudulent invoices and earned some ¥450 million in sales in a year by introducing women to around 100 brothels in Japan.

According to reports in the Asahi, TBS, and MBS News, the men targeted women in their twenties who were patrons at a host club and had likely racked up debts — an issue that has become something of a moral panic in recent years and often highlighted as a key factor in a perceived rise in visible prostitution in places like Shinjnuku.

One of the hosts at the club in Osaka was also among the arrested.