TOKYO (TR) – Tokyo Metropolitan Police have arrested nine men on suspicion of selling illegal adult video DVDs in the Kabukicho red-light district of Shinjuku Ward, reports the Asahi Shimbun (Feb. 26).
According to police, Yoshinori Iizuka, 56, Shinji Yasuda, 41, and seven other suspects are suspected of working together to sell uncensored adult video DVDs to an unspecified number of customers on the streets and in buildings of Kabukicho in January.
Under the law, the genitalia of the performers in such productions must be obscured with what is known as a mosaic.
Upon their arrests on suspicion of distribution of obscene electromagnetic recording media and other charges, eight of the suspects admitted to the charges. The ninth suspect stated, “I have nothing to do with this.”
Police have identified five buyers who purchased a total of 245 DVDs for 73,000 yen. Their average age was 73. One man, aged in his 70s, who lives in Hokkaido Prefecture said, “I didn’t know how to watch uncensored videos online.”
Police suspect that the suspects stored uncensored DVDs at home and stocked them coin-operated lockers in Kabukicho for sale. They then approached elderly men on the streets and sold them with such pitches as, “There are no stores. We’ll sell you a set of different genres for 10,000 yen.”
Based on the suspects’ statements, the department is also investigating the possibility that a portion of the sales is being funneled to people connected to organized crime.
