Foreign Tourists' Rip-Off Complaints in Tokyo's Kabukicho Triple to About 240 Cases, With Losses Near ¥390 Million
About 240 foreign visitors sought help from the Shinjuku police station, which covers Tokyo's Kabukicho district, over rip-off complaints between January and October this year, roughly three times the figure for the same period last year, Kyodo News reported on November 12, citing the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department. The department's public safety division believes touting groups are deliberately targeting foreign tourists and is stepping up vigilance.
Including Japanese victims, the station recorded about 340 rip-off cases in the same period, with total losses of about ¥390 million, more than double the roughly ¥140 million recorded for all of last year. In the typical pattern, touts lead tourists into bars where their credit cards are charged large amounts without their consent at payment time.
On November 11, police arrested two people on the spot on suspicion of running an unlicensed hostess bar in Kabukicho in violation of the Entertainment Business Act, including the bar's 62-year-old Nigerian manager, Ekwealundu Ambrose Osita. The bar had also drawn rip-off complaints from foreign tourists, and police are investigating the connection. The Asahi Shimbun reported that about 160 officers raided two establishments in Kabukicho early on November 11 and arrested five people in total, and that foreign nationals accounted for about 70 percent of the victims in the roughly 340 cases.
Kabukicho, in Tokyo's Shinjuku Ward, is one of the capital's best-known nightlife districts and a magnet for foreign tourists. The Metropolitan Police Department says it will continue to strengthen enforcement and patrols against touting.
(Source: Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department)
Source: Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：东京新宿歌舞伎町夜景（资料图）。Basile Morin 摄，CC BY-SA 4.0，经 Wikimedia Commons。 / Photo: Night view of Kabukicho, Shinjuku, Tokyo (file photo). Photo by Basile Morin, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
