Roppongi Cocaine Bust

[Mulboyne]

Japanese media reports indicate that Roppongi police made a series of drug arrests last weekend when they raided Downtown and Odeon in Roppongi. Included in the group was a 22 year old Japanese college student and also a 29 year old Merrill Lynch employee from England called Edward Jones who claims that someone put the cocaine that police found on him in his pocket without his knowledge. Police say those 2.9 grammes have a street value of 174,000 yen. Acting on a tip, they raided the two establishments in the early hours of Sunday, 11th May and arrested 10 people for possession: 6 Japanese and 4 foreigners. None of the others has been named in the press so far. Four different types of drugs were confiscated in the sweep with a value of 280,000 yen which makes Jones the biggest arrest of the group. One of the others arrested says drugs were bought from a black foreigner in the club: there were around 40 people there at the time and well over half were foreigners but the seller could not be identified. Police had apparently searched Downtown before in February when it was then known as Maxim and arrested 9 people. The name was changed after the raids. Staff denied any knowledge of drugs but police are calling it a "hotbed" of drug-dealing and claim that people post on internet bulletin boards asking whether the dealers are around.

There are several news reports in Japanese. This Yomiuri one has most of the details.

[Big Booger]

How can the arrest of 10 people be considered a "hotbed" of anything regardless of the crime? This is horse shit. I wonder which one of them used the drugs they "confiscated"?

[Visitor K]

Police say those 2.9 grammes have a street value of 174,000 yen.

wow, those cops need to find new dealers if they are paying Y58,000 a gram!

[Mulboyne]

wow, those cops need to find new dealers if they are paying Y58,000 a gram!

That number was reported in this ZakZak article but it doesn't appear anywhere else. This FNN report has a video which also names one of the arrested as Adriano Kinoshita, an electrician from Yokohama.

[xenomorph42]

How can the arrest of 10 people be considered a "hotbed" of anything regardless of the crime? This is horse shit. I wonder which one of them used the drugs they "confiscated"?

This is all around strange and smells very fishy. But this being Japan, you can well imagine how all this will end up(Not Good) for those arrested, especially the FG's.

[Captain Japan]

This article is giving a much more confusing name: Edward Harry James Jones.

[Greji]

wow, those cops need to find new dealers if they are paying Y58,000 a gram!

Hey, TIJ. If it's rightous sneeze and a heavy gram, you never know....

[halfnip]

The incident a few years back where a few FG's died from OD'ing was a much bigger incident as a lot of them were senior level managers at big banks.. It sounds to me like the J police are getting a little desperate here. Wow, a bust with about Y300,000 in total value. Yippee----!

[Iraira]

Pricing powder
Jun 28th 2007
From Economist.com

THE street price of cocaine varies hugely across the world. No surprise that it is cheapest in Colombia, the world's biggest producer of coca: at $2, a gram costs less than a Big Mac. Geography is an obvious price factor. The farther away a country from the main producers in South and Central America, and the more isolated it is, the higher the cost to traffick there. In far-flung New Zealand, a gram costs a wallet-busting $714.30. But there are some pricing anomalies. Although the street price in Japan is several times higher than in Israel, Germany and Britain, the wholesale price in the countries is similar, around $46.40. In Canada the wholesale price is 50% more than in America, but Canadians pay 40% less on the street. It could be that policing is more zealous in some countries, or that there is less competition among suppliers.

http://www.economist.com/daily/chartgallery/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9414607

[Captain Japan]

[Jack]

Japan Today finally got this story up. But since there is no Kyodo tag my guess is that most of the info came from Mulboyne's initial post:
British employee of Merrill Lynch Japan among 10 busted over cocaine use at nightclubs
Japan Today

How many were girls?

[Iraira]

[quote="Captain Japan"]via Japan Today: Police said the British suspect denies the allegations. He was quoted as saying, “]

When the police find the "African guy" whom will he blame sold him the drugs? If he blames a Japanese person, then we've come full circle and this cycle can repeat until doomsday (Dec. 21, 2012). The J-cops have perfected circularly redundant perpetual motion.

[Mulboyne]

How many were girls?

"Mixed group" says the report. If there was only one girl among the ten then the language probably would have been different. I'd put good money down that the 22 year old private college student mentioned is a girl.

[Captain Japan]