Child sex network uncovered / 5 girls aged 13 to 16, 3 men held over soliciting on Web 'dating' site

The Yomiuri Shimbun
January 22, 2008
Source: http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/20080122TDY02312.htm

The Saitama prefectural police have taken into custody four middle school girls and a high school girl on suspicion of violating the Internet dating site control law by posting online messages offering themselves for prostitution, sources said Monday.

The four middle school girls, aged between 13 and 15 and a second-year high school girl, 16, are from Saitama and Ibaraki prefectures, the sources said.

As several girls, including a 12-year-old primary school girl, had posted similar messages on the dating service site, officers plan to take more girls into custody, the sources said.

The police also have arrested three men, including Shigeru Odaka, 44, a primary school janitor in Edogawa Ward, Tokyo, on suspicion of violating the same law and have sent papers on another man to public prosecutors, the sources said.

The dating service site was called the "Bulletin for Enjo Kosai with Female Primary and Middle School Students."

Enjo kosai (compensated dating) is a euphemism for teenage prostitution.

According to the police, in August, the girls posted online messages seeking dating partners, including offers of sexual services.

Three of the five girls committed indecent acts with two men they met via the Web site after receiving between 15,000 yen and 20,000 yen from them, the police said.

The two men have been arrested on suspicion of violating the law on child prostitution and child pornography.

In August, Odaka was suspected of transmitting messages from his mobile phone to the site asking if there were girls aged between 11 and 15 who needed pocket money, the police said.

Posting online messages offering to pay someone younger than 18 to take part in sex acts, or offering the services of a child for prostitution is prohibited under law.

The site, which has been closed, was believed to have operated for four to five years, and to have received several thousand hits a day, with 80 percent of those visiting the site being adult male "buyers" and 20 percent being girls offering sexual services.

Using online jargon, the primary school girls were referred to as "JS" and middle school girls as "JC." Only the ages of the girls and an amount of money were listed on the site.

One of the girls taken into custody reportedly told the police she posted messages on the site for fun, and was surprised to have received so many invitations from men.

One of the arrested men was served a fresh arrest warrant on suspicion of violating the law on child prostitution and child pornography for having committed indecent acts with an underage girl.

Last summer, the police began investigating the Web site after finding many online messages posted on it from men seeking underage sex partners following the discovery of the site by its "cyber patrol,"set up to detect illegal acts online.

The police have been unable to determine who set up the site, but worked with the site's Internet service provider to trace the people who had posted messages.

The police confiscated more than 1,000 photos of Odaka committing obscene acts with girls, and notes such as "Today's partner was a first-year high school student" from Odaka's home in Minami-kasai, Edogawa Ward, Tokyo, the police said.

Odaka also posted messages on other dating sites, saying that in recent years he had had sexual relations with about 50 women and girls he met via the Internet.

The police also are questioning him on suspicion of violating the Law for Punishing Acts Related to Child Prostitution and Child Pornography.

(Jan. 22, 2008)

5 girls, education official tied to child prostitution scandal on matchmaking site

The Mainichi Shimbun
January 22, 2008
Source: http://mdn.mainichi.jp/national/news/20080122p2a00m0na017000c.html

SAITAMA -- Five girls have been questioned and an education official has been arrested for using an online matchmaking site for child prostitution, police said.

Investigators suspect that school girls as young as elementary school age used the Web site to offer to perform prostitution, and that the site was a hotbed for child prostitution until it was closed in September last year.

The five girls are accused of violating the law regulating matchmaking Web sites. Shigeru Odaka, 44, an official of the Edogawa Ward Board of Education in Tokyo, has been arrested for violating the same law.

The girls posted messages on the site offering to provide sexual services in return for money. They were aged between 12 and 16 when they posted the messages. Odaka put up a message on the same Web site on Aug. 21, last year, asking girls aged between 11 and 15 to have sex with him in return for money.

Moreover, prefectural police have sent investigation reports to prosecutors, accusing three other adults of violating the matchmaking site law and the Law for Punishing Acts Related to Child Prostitution and Child Pornography for looking for underage prostitutes on the same Web site.

（Mainichi Japan） January 22, 2008

Tabloid Tidbits: Schoolgirl sex sellers use codes for carnality

The Mainichi Shimbun (WaiWai)
January 27, 2008
Source: http://mdn.mainichi.jp/culture/waiwai/news/20080126p2g00m0dm010000c.html

"IkebLURV1700Yukichi2JC1"

At first glance, the above looks like nothing more than gobbledygook, but Nikkan Gendai (1/23) says it's actually an elaborate code used by a schoolgirl prostitute ring cops broke up this week.

Saitama Prefectural Police have already taken into custody five schoolgirls ranging from junior high school to high school pupils, accusing them of breaking the Matchmaking Site Regulation Law by running a bulletin board offering sexual services performed by junior high and elementary school girls.

More arrests are expected.

"Prefectural police are poised to arrest a 6th grade schoolgirl who was using this site," an investigation insider tells Nikkan Gendai. "I think it's probably the first time that an elementary school pupil has been arrested for breaking this law."

About 80 percent of those who accessed the site are believed to have been pedophiles or those fixated with young girls. But the posts on the bulletin board were nearly all written in code.

Standard procedure was for the first two characters used to resemble the name of a well-known and easily identifiable place, so the above message would have been referring to Tokyo's Ikebukuro entertainment district.

A heart mark -- or, as in the above case, the letters "LURV" -- signifies the girl's willingness to have sex, the lowbrow tabloid says, adding the next four numbers were the time, according to the 24-hour clock, that she would be able to meet.

Yukichi refers to Yukichi Fukuzawa, the man whose face appears on the 10,000 yen note. The number immediately following his name designates how many 10,000 yen notes the girl is seeking to supply carnal services.

JC, meanwhile, is code for Joshi Chugakusei, the Japanese word for junior high schoolgirl. Elementary schoolgirls, incidentally, are "JS" for Joshi Shogakusei, while "JK" stands for Joshi Kosei, or high school girl. The number after the code letters indicates the grade the girl is in.

"'IkebLURV1700Yukichi2JC1,' then, stands for a message meaning: 'First year junior high schoolgirl, can meet for love in Ikebukuro from 5 p.m. with sex costing 20,000 yen," sex business writer Atsushi Tashiro tells Nikkan Gendai. "If there is a heart mark in a girl's mail, it's code for saying that she's willing to have sex for money. If there's a heart mark and a number nearby it in any mails a girl sends, parents should suspect that she's selling her body." (By Ryann Connell)

（Mainichi Japan） January 27, 2008

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