Japan: Safe, but not Utopia

Japan is comparatively safe with regard to street crime. Compared to nearly any country in the world, you are statistically safer in Japan. But that doesn't mean that crime doesn't happen. While still sporting crime rates that would be cause for jubilation most other places in the world, the Japanese public is concerned that crime rates are trending up.

Japan's rate of crimes is miniscule compared with other nations. Homicide is quite well documented, with Japan recording 0.2 homicides per 100,000 persons, relative to the United States' 5.3. But in other crimes it is similarly low. Robberies are 1.2 per 100K, compared to 43.8 in France, 43.2 in Germany, and 81.4 in the US. Assault is 15 per 100K compared with 460 in France, 156 in Germany, and 278 in the US.

But recently, Japan has had some crimes which have made national news. In January 2023, burglars killed a 90-year-old woman in the process of robbing her house. The ensuing investigation brought down an international crime ring of Japanese handlers operating via the internet from the Philippines. One of the masterminds used the name "Luffy" from One Piece as his alias, and so the crimes became known as the "Luffy robberies." As documented in an earlier column, the so called 闇バイト (yami-baito) or "shadow temp work" has been making waves as well. "Yamibaito - Japan's Dark Part-Time Job Market" One of the criminals involved was a former yakuza, so some yakuza groups are publicly calling for the harshest possible punishment, as this person made yakuza look bad.

Recently though, as the Nippon Professional Baseball league has reached the end of its season, a shocking crime occurred that should be easy to solve.

A fan of the Yokohama DeNA Bay Stars (Japanese baseball clubs usually contain the name of their corporate sponsors, in this case video game company DeNA) started streaming himself via his phone, as he disembarked at JR Sakuragicho station in Yokohama. The Bay Stars had qualified for the post season, and the fan in question had been celebrating with some liquid refreshment of an alcoholic variety. He had at peak 80 people watching his livestream, but at the 7 minute mark, the man fell asleep on the street. The phone, however kept streaming. The man was wearing a backpack, switched to the front of his body, which contained his personal effects, and also seemed to prop the man up so viewers could see his face as he dozed. After a few minutes, a hand appears in the frame which does not belong to the sleeping fan. It extracts his wallet from his open backpack and disappears. The man, highly intoxicated, doesn't notice a thing. Then 30 minutes later, the hand reappears and grabs the phone, which is still livestreaming.

The thief walks away and jumps into a car. Either using the man's phone or his own phone, he calls a contact, and has a conversation which is livestreamed, unbeknownst to the thief. He begins by talking about how he managed to swipe a wallet and a phone from a "maguro(tuna)" which is a common code phrase for a passed out drunk person from whom it is easy to steal. He details the contents of the wallet, including the presence of a debit card. The thief goes to a convenience store and uses the debit card to make a purchase worth 20,000 yen (currently about 135 USD). The man carries his ill gotten loot, including the phone which is still livestreaming, to the location of another person, possibly a fence.

The faces and voices of the criminals were broadcast on the livestream which was immediately saved to the cloud. Hopefully the Kanagawa police can find the perpetrators with this much evidence. A link to a news story including the edited streamed video can be found here (IN JAPANESE): LINK