TOKYO (TR) – As a part of an investigation into the upload of illegal pornographic material to a site based overseas, Tokyo Metropolitan Police have arrested an American national employed at a management company for the site, reports Nikkan Sports (Mar. 9).
Police have accused Michael Tharp, a 34-year-old employee of the management company for site Caribbeancom.com, of allegedly participating in the upload of pornographic content to the site in which genitalia was not obscured.
According to previous reports, the material was filmed at a studio in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward on February 2, 2016. It was distributed on Caribbeancom.com on August 17. Police had previously charged actor Jo Oshima, one other actor, actress Yui Nishikawa and two persons with AV production company Declare in the case.
All of the suspects have been charged with the digital distribution of content deemed obscene.
According to Nikkan Sports, Tharp worked on compressing the video data from the shoot prior to distribution on the site. Police apprehended the American in the village of Onna, Okinawa Prefecture on March 3 after learning he was staying in the country.
A previous report indicated that Declare received a fee of two million yen for dispatching Nishikawa to the shoot. The company works in conjunction with AV company Pierrot, which was busted in January for the same crime.
The servers for Caribbeancom.com, which bills itself as offering “uncensored” content, are hosted overseas. Boasting approximately 300,000 members, the site includes about 4,300 films featuring around 370 Japanese AV actresses.
