Tokyo: Street tout suspected in porn star bait-and-switch scam

TOKYO (TR) – It’s Valentine’s Day, but punters in Ikebukuro must be wondering: Where is the love?

Tokyo Metropolitan Police on Wednesday announced the arrest of a suspected member of a fraud ring that swindled persons by falsely claiming that its sex business provided adult video (AV) actresses, reports TV Asahi (Feb. 14).

Last month, Ryoki Nishi, 25, in conspiracy with others swindled a 31-year-old man from Ibaraki Prefecture out of 650,000 yen in cash on a street near JR Ikebukuro Station by luring him with the false promise that a woman who appeared in AV productions was available.

“I was asked to go to take the money only,” Nishi was quoted by police in denying the charges.

According to police, the operation involved a series of stages that required the victim to pay a number of persons between his encounter with the tout on the street and an eventual arrival at a hotel, where an AV actress would not materialize.

Over the past two years, police have received about 60 complaints from victims of similar ruses in which the damage totaled 50 million yen.