Porn producer arrested for deceiving female performer

The head of a video production company has been arrested for not providing a woman who appeared in a porn shoot with a performer’s contract.

According to Tokyo Metropolitan Police, Daichi Iwai is suspected of failing to give the female performer a contract when she worked for him last year. He was arrested on April 14.

The 35-year-old suspect explained to her verbally in May 2024 that “no one will know it’s you and we can delete the footage.” However, the actual release did not conceal the twentysomething’s identity, nor did Iwai respond to requests for him to delete the video.

It is not clear why it took so long for police to arrest Iwai, but perhaps the performer did not go to police immediately or realize that her identity in the video was compromised until recently.

According to police estimates in media reports, Iwai’s Shibuya-based production company, IWD, is suspected of similarly not giving contracts to dozens of other female performers and of making ¥37 million in sales in this way from 11 videos last year.

IWD would sell a video for ¥3,000 on overseas porn sites, releasing it a mere two weeks after the shoot in violation of the law’s required four-month cooling-off period.

This is the latest in a growing line of arrests and incidents that represent a crackdown on disreputable practices by porn production companies.

It was made possible by a public outcry over coercion in the adult video industry that culminated in extensive new legislation in 2022 that awarded much more power to performers, making it illegal not to provide a contract with details of the performance and giving performers cooling-off periods to withdraw from contracts and even cancel the release of a production after filming.