Earlier this week, Tokyo Metropolitan Police announced the bust of two high-end sex services based in Tokyo’s Shibuya Ward on charges of prostitution.
Police accused Yoshihiro Aihara, 32, the manager of Girly Tokyo and Elite Club, of dispatching female employees to hotels in Tokyo to provide honban (full sex) to male customers.
Catering to elite members of society, the services, says evening tabloid Nikkan Gendai (July 9), employed college students and models looking to make it in entertainment.
“At Elite Club, it is likely that some girls pulled in 150,000 yen a day,” says a person working in the trade. “As far as overall appearance, the clubs were staffed with some extraordinary girls, whose motive was pocket money or the acquisition of a sugar daddy. Unknowns in the model or entertainment industries, they were willing to sleep their way to success.”
The two clubs employed a total of 70 girls, aged between 18 and 25, of whom approximately 30 have been confirmed by police to be active university students.
“In being exclusive operations, the hospitality afforded by the girls was extensive, and (the businesses) always ranked high in popularity polls conducted on the Internet,” continues the industry insider.
Numbers provided by police back up that claim. Since May of 2013, the clubs collected 200 million yen in revenue. The number of customers served over that period totaled 3,000.
The fun didn’t come cheap. Operating on a “delivery health” out-call basis, the services charged 40,000 yen for the first hour. A special three-hour session was priced at 220,000 yen.
Taizo Ebina, a writer covering the fuzoku (sex-related) trade, says that more than a few customers may be a bit concerned at the moment.
“The customers were VIPs, including politicians, business executives and entertainment-industry types,” says the writer. “Some companies used the clubs for entertaining important customers.”
In most cases, claims Ebina, a shop on the verge of a raid by law enforcement will destroy its computer hard disks by drilling holes in them.
“This protects the personal information of their customers,” the writer continues. “But in this case, the police seized a customer list. There are probably quite a few guys around town shaking in their boots right about now.”
Then again, we’ve been here before: Five years ago, police busted a Shibuya call-girl operation with a customer list containing 27,000 names — and nothing ever emerged from that crackdown.
Aihara, the manager of the clubs, has reportedly denied the allegations of prostitution. “We don’t employ prostitutes,” the suspect is quoted by police.
Yet, the aforementioned insider notes that the success of the operations was due to the supply of full sex. (For a primer on prostitution and the law in Japan, a handy guide is available.)
“They intimated as much in promotions — and that’s likely why they got busted.”
A regular catch-22, chuckles Nikkan Gendai.
Source: “3-jikan 22man-en ‘moderu zaiseki’ kokyu deriheru tekihatsu ni VIP ha sensenkyokyo,” Nikkan Gendai (July 9, page 3)