Pimp for teenage girls in Kabukicho busted

Japan Today
April 5, 2008
Source: http://www.japantoday.com/category/shukan-post/view/pimp-for-teenage-girls-in-kabukicho-busted

A man was arrested for violating the Child Welfare Law on March 24. He is alleged to have had a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old high school girl. But he was doing more than just having sex with a minor: It turns out he was a pimp for teenage prostitutes in Kabukicho, one of Tokyo’s biggest nightlife areas.

Yoshiyuki Tsuchida, 27, was called “Ryu (Dragon) in Kabukicho,” police say. “He would approach girls who were working for themselves in Kabukicho, offering himself as a bodyguard. He earned up to 2-3 million yen a month.”

One 18-year-old girl who hired him as a bodyguard says: “Ryu didn’t talk about himself at all but he is a guy who looks like a nightclub host. He always worked together with a beautiful woman whom I got acquainted with online. She told me to come to Tokyo to work with them because she said they would give me support. So she was virtually managing teenage prostitutes in Kabukicho on behalf of Ryu.”

A journalist who writes about the sex industry says Tsuchida ran a business acting as a liaison between teen girls and customers in Kabukicho. “However much customers paid, we only got 10,000 yen. Ryu took the rest. Some girls were satisfied with him as a bodyguard even if they weren’t getting enough money. But I didn’t like that,” said the 18-year-old girl.

The journalist said Ryu was not just a pimp but gave the girls “lessons.” “But some girls squealed on him to the police after they got dissatisfied with their earnings.”

Kabukicho was supposed to have been cleaned by police in 2005, but Ryu’s case shows there are still underground businesses exploiting minors in the area. (Translated by Taro Fujimoto)

'Dragon of Kabukicho' arrested for sex with schoolgirl

The Mainichi Shimbun
March 24, 2008
Source: http://mdn.mainichi.jp/national/news/20080324p2a00m0na033000c.html

A man who called himself the "Dragon of Kabukicho" and boasts of living off millions of yen given to him each month by women has been arrested for having sex with a schoolgirl, police said Monday.

Yoshiyuki Tsuchida, 27, unemployed of no fixed address, was arrested for breaking the Child Welfare Law.

Tsuchida, who was known around the Tokyo entertainment districts of Shinjuku and Ikebukuro as the "Dragon of Kabukicho," admits to the allegations.

"In some months, women would give me as much as 2 million or 3 million yen," police quoted Tsuchida as telling them.

Police said that on two occasions in September and October last year, Tsuchida performed indecent acts on a 17-year-old schoolgirl in a love hotel in the Shinjuku-ku entertainment district of Kabukicho.

Police said Tsuchida approached the girl by telling her that he would become her bodyguard.

(Mainichi Japan) March 24, 2008