OSAKA (TR) – Osaka prefectural police arrested a company employee for installing a digital camera in a women’s public toilet and selling the footage on the Internet, reports the Sankei Shimbun (Nov. 15).
Police authorities on Monday reported that Toshiyuki Morikawa, 26, had been taken into custody at a supermarket on August 2 for unlawful entry and violating the Anti-Nuisance Ordinance by investigators working on a separate case. Thereafter, the suspect, residing in Kodama City, was linked to several other incidents involving obscene photos. “I like peeping photos,” he is quoted by police.
At the supermarket, the suspect had entered a separate room next to the toilet and installed a digital camera in the partition. A search of his apartment by investigators uncovered 36 hours of film of approximately 2,000 women.
Among fanatics on the Internet, the footage was championed for being taken at a “superhuman angle.” According to police, one hour of film was selling for 10,000 yen and Morikawa had fetched 4.5 million yen over two years.
“Victims of these voyeurs are unaware of what has happened and a sense of recovery becomes impossible once the film spills onto the Internet,” said a representative from the investigation. “Women need to be sufficiently vigilant around toilets and escalators.”