TOKYO (TR) – Tokyo Metropolitan Police have arrested three men for allegedly locking a 17-year-old boy in a car in the red-light district of Kabukicho last year and assaulting him, reports the Sankei Shimbun (June 11).
On November 19, Kotaro Yaguchi, 20, Nagaki Morita, 29, and an 18-year-old boy allegedly locked the male high school student in a car in a parking lot near a train station after repeatedly punching him and stealing 2,000 yen in cash.
Inside the rented car, the assault continued. “We’ll beat you up with an iron pipe for 10 minutes,” one of them said. They then stole his smartphone, which is worth 130,000 yen.
All three suspects deny the allegations, police said.
The suspects belong to a group known for extortion and other heinous acts in the center of the red-light district. On social networking sites, Yaguchi goes by the name “Endro” and Morita by “Imokenpi.”
The victim is among the youths who congregate around the Toho Cinemas complex in the heart of the district. Popularized on social media as toyoko — or “Toyoko Kids,” a reference to the complex — these types, many of them runaways, feel the area is somewhere they can belong to.
The boy had been attending Kimimamo@Kabukicho, a Tokyo Metropolitan Government general counseling center that started to support these youths around the summer of 2024.
According to police, a Kimimamo@Kabukicho staff member called police on the day of the incident to report that “the boy had a wound on his face.”
According to the police station, the boy said that Yaguchi had also assaulted him a few days prior to the incident, kicking him in the leg.
