Press "Enter" to skip to content

Swindlers extend ‘send money’ flimflams to the sex business

Jitsuwa Taiho November
Jitsuwa Taiho November
“On the street in Ikebukuro I was accosted by a Chinese woman who said she’d spend 90 minutes with me in a hotel for 20,000 yen,” the man relates. “In the room while we were talking she slipped a knockout drop into my beer, and when I woke up I realized she’d made off with the 650,000-yen Rolex watch I’d bought with my bonus, plus 80,000 yen in my wallet and five credit cards.”

It’s not only foreigners who are engaging in outrageous ripoffs. Men who let down their guards are also being taken to the cleaners by native-born swindlers using a variation on the notorious “it’s me, send money” scheme.

A 32-year-old salaryman who availed himself of a “delivery health” (out-call sex) service in Kanagawa Prefecture found out the hard way that he had been targeted by professional swindlers using a woman as bait.

Deri heru services, which involve erotic massage and oral sex, are legal, but their workers are not permitted to engage in intercourse with customers.

Some, however, are more than willing to bend the rules in exchange for additional payment. In this gentleman’s case, when he propositioned the 19-year-old masseuse for honban (the real thing) she responded readily for an added incentive of 10,000 yen.

Not long afterwards, reports Jitsuwa Taiho (November), the man, while at work, received a call on his personal mobile phone. The male caller identified himself as the staff of a private detective agency.

“Remember that woman dispatched to you by the delivery health service?” The caller asked. “The one you had sex with? It so happens she was a minor. She’s talking about giving your name to the police, but for a consideration I think I can hush her up.”

“There I was sitting in the office, and was about to panic,” the man relates. “All I could think about was wanting to end the conversation, so I agreed to transfer money to the account he specified.”

The victim eventually made three transfers totaling 1 million yen. He might have been squeezed for even more, but by fortuitous circumstance he happened to spot an article in the Yukan Fuji newspaper of June 21, 2007 that described the predicament of a man victimized by an almost identical scheme. The man had used his mobile phone to set up the session with the woman, and afterwards the woman had given the swindlers enough details of their encounter to provide them with his contact number and sufficient leverage to extort money.

The swindlers are believed to be based in Kanagawa Prefecture and, according to the prefectural police, may still be active. The total number of victims is unknown. (K.S.)

Source: “Anata no saifu ga nerawareteiru!” Jitsuwa Taiho (Nov., 2008, pages 70-73)