Kabukicho Bar Scam Uncovered

[Mulboyne]

Yomiuri: Kabukicho bar scam uncorked - Drinking holes conspired to ply customers with booze, rob them
About 30 bar patrons in the Kabukicho entertainment district of Tokyo appear to have been robbed since autumn after being fed alcohol until they were drunk in a ploy organized by several bars in the area, The Yomiuri Shimbun has learned. The police believe a sophisticated operation involving at least five bars has pocketed more than 40 million yen by forcing the customers to drink themselves unconscious and then stealing their cash cards. According to sources, one bar would ply a customer with drink and take him to a nearby ATM to watch him type in the PIN number, while the next would keep the customer drinking and steal his cash card to withdraw money. The Metropolitan Police Department is investigating the cases as drugging-robberies. A 50-year-old company employee from Nerima Ward who had been drinking heavily in Kabukicho died Saturday after a bar manager and three others robbed him and left him on the street early that morning...more...

(article continued in next post)

Related FG Thread: Shinjuku Snack Bar Transvestite Scam

[Mulboyne]

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The man reportedly had been enticed to drink a large amount of vodka mixed with shochu and other beverages at a bar called Mimatsu. His ATM card was then stolen, and the man was abandoned on the street. The bar's manager, Mitsuko Ogawa, 73, and three others have been arrested on suspicion of drugging-robbery. According to investigation sources, two women who appeared to be bar staff cozied up to the man while he was drinking and accompanied him when he went to withdraw cash from an ATM at a nearby convenience store. The women watched the man punch in his PIN number and then apparently later stole the cash card and used it to withdraw more money. According to a senior MPD officer, most of the 30 victims who have fallen prey to this scheme since autumn had been customers of four bars in central Kabukicho, including Mimatsu. After becoming intoxicated, the victims, as they stumbled along the road alone late at night, would be invited by young Japanese or foreign women who were part of the ring to go for another drink. When the victim was handed an exorbitant bill, the women would recommend he pay by credit card.

If he refused, bar staff would take the extremely inebriated victim to a convenience store and watch him withdraw money with his cash card. At this stage, the victim would be taken to another bar nearby and forced to drink some more, with a bar staffer sometimes even passing alcohol from her mouth to the victim's, until the victim passed out. Bar staff would then pinch the cash card and use it to steal funds from the victim's account. The perpetrators sometimes placed the card and a small sum of cash back in the victim's wallet and then bundled the victim into a taxi and sent the victim home to help cover their tracks. Last month, the MPD arrested a man whose role at the second bar was to withdraw the money from the victim's account, on suspicion of drugging-robbery. This month, a woman known as "Mama" at a bar used for the follow-up drinking session, and several men, including the bar manager, were arrested on suspicion of robbing a male customer of several hundred thousand yen in December after luring him into a drinking binge. The police are trying to trace the stolen money.

[Behan]

(continued)
with a bar staffer sometimes even passing alcohol from her mouth to the victim's, until the victim passed out..

Talk about unconventional warfare.

[Ketou]

(continued)

...a woman known as "Mama"

Lol....let me guess...there is also another known as chi-mama..

[Greji]

Yomiuri: Kabukicho bar scam uncorked - Drinking holes conspired to ply customers with booze, rob them

Ahhh, what's new? They been flogging Mickey Finn's in Kabukicho for years. Granted the new twist is the availability of a cash, or credit card for card loans. Before it was simply drain the wallet at the bar or after the customer was dumped in the alley. Business as usual.

[Mulboyne]

Ahhh, what's new? They been flogging Mickey Finn's in Kabukicho for years. Granted the new twist is the availability of a cash, or credit card for card loans. Before it was simply drain the wallet at the bar or after the customer was dumped in the alley. Business as usual.

Quite right, as that other story from eighteen months ago shows. As far as the police are concerned, I suppose it's something of a game of whack-a-mole. Mind you, it doesn't sound like they are too proactive in going after these places. They seem mainly to wait for complaints to build up and I suppose some victims don't make a report at all. The dead body in the street seems to have prompted a response on this occasion.

[Greji]

Quite right, as that other story from eighteen months ago shows. As far as the police are concerned, I suppose it's something of a game of whack-a-mole. Mind you, it doesn't sound like they are too proactive in going after these places. They seem mainly to wait for complaints to build up and I suppose some victims don't make a report at all. The dead body in the street seems to have prompted a response on this occasion.

You're quite right and it seems unfortunate that it would take a body to make them move, but I'm afraid that's closer to the truth, than not...

[Sentakki Fried Chicken]

I'm with the other old-timers...what's new about this? Practices like this have been going on in Japan for decades, if not centuries....