Editors of and contributors to the subculture monthly Jitsuwa Knuckles might occasionally be accused of embellishing the facts, but can certainly take pride in that the shock value of their publication is second to none.
Perusing a copy of its February issue — procured for a fraction of its regular 490-yen price tag from a homeless gentleman hawking it outside of a major rail terminal in the Tokyo metropolitan area — your faithful correspondent came across what he sensed was a rather amazing piece of investigative reporting.
While stirring his cuppa hot tea with a spoon, a source going by the pseudonym “Atsushi Ota” informs writer Daisuke Yokoyama, under assurance of anonymity, of the existence of a horrifying type of underground sex business.
“I was introduced by a Chinese hood I’ll just call ‘Mr. K,’ who’s around 30 years old,” Ota relates. “He’d been in Japan about five years and spoke pretty fluent Japanese. To start up his new business he looked around for guys who could drive a car and were smooth talkers. Apparently he found plenty of takers.”
The drivers for K’s service worked a shift from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m., and received 35,000 yen a night in remuneration.
K had recruited a certain ‘Mr. Fukayama’ (also a pseudonym), who was in desperate need of cash. All Fukayama had to do — through instructions from K — was chauffeur a passenger in a BMW around Ikebukuro Station in concentric circles, and return to the same spot from which he had departed precisely one hour later.
Because the customer in the back seat would be a VIP, Fukayama was warned to drive using extreme caution, and to keep the car’s windows closed at all times.
“Here’s where things get kinda weird,” says Ota. “While Fukayama was waiting to start driving this 7-series BMW with smoked windows, K invites this middle-aged guy to get in. That’s when he sees there’s a special compartment built behind the car’s back seat.
“He couldn’t see the back seat of the car through the partition, but when the rear door opened up to let the passenger in, he saw this girl, maybe 11 years old, seated there.”
Fukuyama begins circling Ikebukuro. While waiting for a traffic light to change, he is startled by a cry and turns around to see the man having his way with the little girl in the compartment behind the back seat.
The realization then dawned on Fukayama that the car’s purpose was not to transport customers to and from the shop, but as a playpen on wheels for perverts!
Returning the car to its original point of departure at the end of the hour, Fukayama collected his accrued wages on the spot and then fled in terror.
Ota was later informed by K that the service he transports maintains a stable of girls between the ages of 8 to 14, who had been abducted off the streets by another Chinese gang. When not being sold to customers, they are held in a secret hideout.
The 50,000 yen each customer pays per hour gets split evenly between K’s transport service and the abductors.
But how could these Chinese gangsters be so heartless?
“They claim they’re extracting vengeance over what happened in China during World War II,” Ota tells the reporter.
The operators do not advertise for fear their evil enterprise will be exposed. So patrons, the article goes on to say, are exclusively recruited via word of mouth, through long-established pedophile rings.
Pushed for further details, Ota merely said, “If those guys ever find out I talked to you I’d be in a lot of trouble,” and clammed up after that.
Yokoyama himself says he was initially skeptical of the story’s veracity, until he heard of an arrest made last summer. It seems at an impromptu police roadblock in Tokyo, a BMW sedan was halted and the driver asked to show his license, when a girl’s voice shouting “Tasukete!” (help me!) emanated from the back seat. The driver was arrested, prosecuted and sentenced to a two-year term, but in deference to the victim the mass media refrained from reporting further details.
According to Ota, K’s several rapemobiles are still making the rounds in Ikebukuro, Akabane and Mitaka. Just another story, one of 12 million, in the naked city. . .
Source: “Shogakusei rachi baishun no jittai!!” Jitsuwa Knuckles (Feb. ’09, page 42)