An evil network of teachers from primary and middle schools across Japan has seen the last suspect arrested on suspicion of violating the Child Prostitution and Child Pornography Prohibition Act.
The 'Hentai' group of teachers, who reportedly never met in person, created a network where they would secretly film female students and share footage between themselves.
In total, seven teachers have now been arrested after the group, known official as “HLT' (acronym for hentai, lolicon and teacher), formed on social media.
The uncovering of the secret group has sent shockwaves in Japan with police confirming at least 40 victims.
The latest arrest saw an elementary school teacher in Okayama Prefecture. Aichi Prefectural Police made the arrest on November 13 over Mizuki Kai, 27, allegedly violating the law banning child prostitution and child sexual abuse images.
He was working as a municipal elementary school in the Okayama city of Bizen and is suspected of possessing a video showing a girl changing clothes.
Kai admitted the allegation but gave a sick response to investigators that he could not dispose of the video because "they were like treasures".
Despite knowing he may be arrested after seeing other members of the group, and deleting other videos, he could not get rid of this one particular video. Kai also admitted to being part of the sick group but said he never filmed any of the footage himself.
According to Tokyo Reporter, the suspect told police: “Every time I saw news about arrests, I worried that I might get caught someday, so I disposed of the USB containing the voyeur videos I’d obtained online."
The group was allegedly created by Yuji Moriyama 42, a now former elementary school teacher in Nagoya, in August last year.
Police arrested six other elementary and middle school teachers throughout the year. The group had school teachers from Aichi, Kanagawa, Hokkaido, Okayama and Tokyo.
Moriyama, 42, and Fumiya Kosemura, 37, allegedly took voyeur pictures of female students’ underwear at facilities.
Both admitted to the charges during questioning earlier this year.
Moriyama wrote on the sick social media group, which was private and only shared with "trustworthy" people, that: “Given my profession, there are many things I would never talk about in public, but I hope to be able to discuss them here.”
Posts on the group allegedly saw people praising voyeur images they shared with one warning “Let’s try not to get caught.”
The sick group was only uncovered following another incident, which sparked an investigation.
An elementary teacher called Shota Suito allegedly splashed bodily fluids on a 15-year-old girl’s backpack at a train platform.
When the police analysed his smartphone, they found the social networking group that led police to arrest Moriyama and Kosemura.
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