TOKYO (TR) – Risa Yamada, the so-called “legendary” kakeko (caller) who defrauded victims out of 600 million yen as part of the notorious Luffy crime ring, has revealed how a lucrative and vengeful career in the sex industry led her straight into the underworld of yami baito (dark part-time jobs).
A chronicle of her ups and downs is included in the new book “Luffy in a Cage: The People Who Created ‘Dark Part-Time Jobs,'” which details the origins of the Luffy syndicate. As summarized by Shukan Bunshun (July 14), she divulges her view that the end justifies the means when it comes to underground work.
Yamada’s descent began in high school with compensated dating (enjo kosai) before she graduated to extreme sex work. Bouncing between soapland bathhouses in Shinjuku, Yoshiwara and Kawasaki, she worked grueling 12-hour shifts six days a week.
However, the physical toll was overshadowed by her massive earnings, which regularly topped 1.5 million yen a month. Her secret to high income was calculated: Yamada intentionally applied to cheap “delivery health” services where the staff lacked motivation and the competition was low. She would then secretly proposition clients for illegal “full-service” acts for an extra 5,000 to 20,000 yen under the table.
“Lives to clear grudges”
Living near the neon-lit streets of Kabukicho, the teenager blew her cash at host clubs — but not as a typical paying customer. Driven by a deep-seated grudge against men who had bullied her in the past, Yamada became a predator. She targeted vulnerable male hosts, sleeping with nearly 300 of them, and manipulated them into paying for her dates.
“I wanted to take revenge and show the men who made a fool of me how beautiful I had become,” Yamada revealed. “I didn’t pay hosts; I made them pay. At the time, I had countless sexual encounters for work and in my private life. I thought it proved my value as a woman.”
She even penned an unpublished autobiographical novel titled “Woman of the Underworld,” writing: “The real me lives to clear my grudges.”
Despite her lavish and reckless lifestyle, Yamada consistently sent 300,000 yen a month to her ailing mother, eventually moving her family from a run-down apartment in Saitama Prefecture to Tokyo.
Desperate to maintain cash flow
But by age 22, Yamada realized her youth — and therefore her high value in the sex industry — was fading. Desperate to maintain her cash flow and realizing a conventional job would never pay enough, she turned to social media.
Searching for hashtags promising massive payouts, she found posts advertising “500,000 yen a day.” She quickly connected with a shadowy recruiter via direct message and was instructed to move the conversation to the encrypted messaging app Telegram.
For Luffy ring, Yamada was based the Philippines, where the ring gave instructed for robberies in Japan. In one case in 2023, four Japanese members of the ring give instructions from an immigration detention center in Manila for a burglary in Komae City, Tokyo that led to the death of a 90-year-old female resident.
That same year, Yamada, at the age of 27, was arrested over a break-in a residence in Adachi Ward. She was later indicted on suspicion of theft.
During that investigation, Yamada said, “A senior member [of Luffy] saw the news of the Komae incident on his smartphone and said, ‘I didn’t think the grandmother would die.’”
“No resistance”
While other low-level scammers in the Luffy ring later claimed in court that they thought they were applying for innocent resort jobs, Yamada admitted to knowing exactly what she was getting into.
“I thought at the time that making a living through prostitution and making a living through crime weren’t that different,” Yamada stated. “So I had no resistance to taking a dark part-time job. Because I believe work should be merit-based, a fixed salary didn’t suit me. I intended to make at least 2 million yen a month. I simply and easily decided to earn it through crime instead of normal work.”
