TV has no bibliography (no triangulation of facts and references). However, Adelstein refers to nearly 20 articles that he published in the Yomiuri upon which much of the book is based. So, let’s fact check these articles and the veracity of Jake Adelstein as a journalist.
Article 1 Organized Crime Targeting Non-Japanese Street Vendors. Yakuza Find New Way to Squeeze Out ‘Rent’ by Taking Advantage of Illegal Workers (Who Can’t Seek Police Protection) (Published in mid- to late October 1992 according to Tokyo Vice.)
Adelstein claimed he received an unprecedented ad hoc internship in October of 1992 while he was still a student at Sophia. This included three days at the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department press club and then several weeks at the Chiba office “in October” where he was asked to investigate some Israeli street vendors who seemed to be paying protection money to yakuza. This was on account of Adelstein being Jewish and ostensibly being able to get the Israelis to open up to him. Adelstein claimed that he wrote and published the following article “a few weeks later,” which would have been October or early November at the latest, “Organized Crime Targeting Non-Japanese Street Vendors. Yakuza Find New Way to Squeeze Out ‘Rent’ by Taking Advantage of Illegal Workers (Who Can’t Seek Police Protection).”
A very small article (533 Japanese characters or approx. 280 English words) did appear in the Yomiuri from the Chiba office as well, but the title was a much less sensational version, “Gangsters taking protection money from from foreign street vendors / Chiba,” and it was published on December 21, 1992 or roughly two months after Adelstein’s claim. Could the date discrepancy be just an honest mistake in Adelstein’s notes? Possibly, but he clearly embellished the title of the article to make it sound more impressive. The publication date is wrong, the title is wrong, and the time of employment is wrong. Thus, it is more likely than not that Adelstein made up the entire intern story and falsely took credit for the authorship of this street vendor article. At the very least he lied about the title of the article and when it was published.
Article 2 is a two articles on the “Ryu Machida” murder by “Yoshiyama” in April 1993.
Although Adelstein does not claim any of his own articles with a byline, he claims to have been actively involved in investigating this homicide, including questioning detectives at the police press conference and personally being the first Yomiuri person to find the name of the female suspect who he only refers to as “Yoshiyama.” Adelstein said she was eventually convicted of this crime in September 1994 and received a sentence of eight years in prison.
Two brief articles did in fact appear in the Yomiuri on April 16 and 17, respectively, which coincides with the April 15 start-of-work date, which Adelstein claimed and which is also plausible. Thus, the story was real, but Adelstein made one major error and two minor errors in Tokyo Vice versus what actually appeared in the two articles.
Adelstein only refers to the suspect as “Yoshiyama” and does not give a first name. That is sloppy writing in itself, however, he also got the name wrong. The suspect’s name was Katsuko Yoshikawa, not Yoshiyama. This is ironic since the main part of the story in Tokyo Vice was Adelstein doggedly hunting down the victim’s name before anyone else at Yomiuri learned of it. If he cannot even mention the full name, let alone get the name itself correct, how can he expect readers to believe his claim that he was the person who initially identified the suspect through his crafty reporting work?
There were two other minor but glaring mistakes in Tokyo Vice about this case. Adelstein wrote in his book that the body had been found around 11:00a.m. that same morning of April 15, when the actual Yomiuri article said the body had been found at 11:15p.m. the night before. Then Adelstein wrote that the murder weapon was a hunting knife but the Yomiuri article said it was a fruit knife or paring knife. These may be minor details, but they still stand out. At best it is sloppy writing by Adelstein, and at worse he fabricated or exaggerated his involvement in covering that case.
Article 3 – “Kosuke Sato” pickpocket story
Adelstein claims that he published a story about a notorious pickpocket, 45-year-old Kosuke Sato from Niigata, in “late September” of 1993 in a feature section of the local Yomiuri called, “The News Inside and Out.” This article was the culmination of a story in TV about how Adelstein cleverly tricked a police detective into giving him some information on the case for his first “scoop,” thereby demonstrating Adelstein’s resourcefulness and plucky nature.
A real article, “Unemployed Niigata man confesses to 420 cases of pickpocketing and bag lifting / Saitama Preferctural Police, Omiya Station” came out on September 9, 1993 in the Yomiuri. It was very brief and there was no byline attributing it to Adelstein.
The culprit’s real name was Yoshihara Saito, who was 45 and from Niigata, and not Kosuke Sato. So, the name is wrong, the date is wrong, and Adelstein lied about having a byline. Moreover, Adelstein bragged about having a “scoop” after all the investigative adventure he wrote about to get the story. But this tiny weeny article was nothing more than a reprinting of police press club news release. Adelstein then copied and greatly embellished it, claimed credit for it, and proceeded to craft it into an elaborate story that demonstrated his investigative prowess.
Article 4 – Flaming human Hikoki Harasawa, age forty-eight, birthday on January 5 and committed suicide on on December 29, 1993.
Adelstein does not claim any articles about this incident. If a reporter had not only been present at a self-immolation suicide, but had also bumped into the victim and been singed from the fire, one would think there would be an article about it. However, Adelstein wrote his editor asked, “Is the guy famous?”…”Then drop it.” Articles about such bizarre suicides frequently appear in the Japanese papers, particularly when they occur in a public place in a dramatic fashion, but there is no record of a self-immolation suicide anywhere near this place or time in any of the four major Japanese newspapers. At the same time, there were no articles about any fire in Kawaguchi City, which the prop used to place Adelstein near the scene, on or anywhere near that date.
Article 5 – Chichibu Snack Mama murder on Oct. 9, 1993
Adelstein again describes three to four days of dogged work, culminating in obtaining crucial information from Kanji Yokozawa, who was described as “the head of the Forensic Department” and “a veteran homicide detective who commanded wide respect,” which led to a partial scoop for the Yomiuri.
In Tokyo Vice, there were no names of the victim or the perpetrator, nor any details about the trial, sentence, etc., and there was a serious time discrepancy from the date of the murder on October 9 and the article described in Tokyo Vice, which appeared on October 28. Adelstein only described three to four days but 19 days had passed.
This was the evening Adelstein got the call at 9:00pm to go to the homicide scene, which had been reported at 7:40p.m., while in bed with I-Chan. That seems rather fast for the Yomiuri to be on a case and Adelstein wrote 7:45pm. in Tokyo Vice but maybe give him those points. Then, the Yomiuri article that appeared on October 28 was actually titled, “Iranian dating eldest daughter arrested in the murder of snack bar operator / Chichibu, Saitama, ” was slightly different from Adelstein’s version, “Snack-mama Murder: Saitama Police to Arrest Iranian Boyfriend of victim’s eldest daughter.” Adelstein clearly embellished the title to match the catchy phrase, “Snack-Mama Murder” he used for the title of the chapter in the book.
From a brief initial Yomiuri article that appeared on October 10 titled, “Woman operating a snack bar was murdered in apartment building in Chichibu, Saitama” and the later October 28 article as well, we know the victim’s name to be Michiko Sakakibara (52 years old), but Adelstein does not tell us that nor the name of the Iranian boyfriend. The status of the Iranian boyfriend on October 28 is also unclear in Tokyo Vice as it was in the Yomiuri article too.
There was no mention in either the Yomiuri article or Tokyo Vice of the fact that the boyfriend had been arrested the day following the murder on a visa overstay charge and then “served with a fresh arrest warrant” 19 days later on the charge of murder as is a custom in Japan to extend allowable pretrial detention periods. This information was from another newspaper’s article. Even in the original Yomiuri article this “rearrest” point was not made clear, which seems to indicate that the Yomiuri hardly covered this case
Adelstein leaves the readers with the impression that a big man hunt was on to find the Iranian boyfriend, “Now, with this murder, the response of the Saitama police was to round up every Iranian working in Chichibu they could find. This was going to take time.” Unknown to Adelstein or anyone reading the Yomiuri, however, the boyfriend was in police custody the following day being held on a visa violation charge.
Adelstein then crafts two different episodes where he had discussions with a medical examiner who gives CSI-type explanations of how the crime could have been committed, yet the police immediately recovered multiple bloodstained pieces of evidence that connected the suspect to the crime. In other words, there was not much to figure out in this case. It was a simple sloppy homicide, and the police had the killer in custody the following day with multiple pieces of bloodstained evidence connecting him to the crime.
Again, the lack of details, particularly about the boyfriend, is sloppy writing at best, but the biggest problems with this story are the immediate arrest on a visa charge and the 19 days it took to reach the actual arrest story while only three to four days are described in the Tokyo Vice.
Article 6 – Feb. 19, 1994 “Several Dog Lovers Missing in Saitama from April to August. Trouble over Sales.” (morning edition)
Adelstein claimed that this was his first article and cops were upset. Here he starts the friendship with Chiaki Sekiguchi. (A search is still underway to disect the Yomiuri Shimbun article details of this story and correlate them with what Adelstein claimed in Tokyo Vice. It was a nationwide story with scores of articles coming out over many months.)
Article 7 – Electrocution suicide article some time in 1994 (2nd year on the job) and invitation for viewing by Urawa Medical Examiner.
Adelstein claims that there was a story in the Yomiuri about this suicide, but there are no articles in any of the four major Japanese newspapers about an eletrocution suicide anywhere in Saitama in that time frame. Thus, Adelstein lied about the Yomiuri having published an article about it. His claim about having been called by a coroner to come over and view the dead teen in his apartment while still hooked up to live electrodes is preposterous.
Article 8 – Cyclop’s story published sometime around 1994:
His family invested heavily in a Korean-run credit union/bank that eventually had to be bailed out by the Japanese government. Adelstein’s “investigative reporting led to arrests” and brought justice to the Korean community. (A search is still underway to find newspaper details of this story. Nothing came up on an initial cursory search.)
Article 9 – Nakagawa woman murdered in Maruyama Park in Ageo by Iranian boyfriend Abdul “Andy,” almost a year after snack mama.
Adelstein does not mention any article, but simply writes “we got our ass kicked. One morning, both the Mainichi and the Sankei scooped us with articles suggesting that Abdul, the Iranian boyfriend, was the killer and that he was already in custody.”
There is only one very brief Yomiuri article (135 characters) about this case. It came out on October 22, 1994 under the title “Iranian rearrested for murder of woman in Ageo, Saitama.” The article identifies the victim as Sachiko Nakagawa (23yo), whose strangled body was found on October 10, 1994 (apparently died the evening before) and her alleged killer as an Iranian man, Sayed Mohamed Sobuhaniyan (not Abdul or Andy).
A Mainichi article came out with more details on October 17, 1994, and there were a total of five Manichi articles on this case all the way up to court coverage. The Mainichi articles also state that the boyfriend and the victim were living together. Thus, a major story in Tokyo Vice is is busted as a lie with this information. Adelstein went into details about how the Iranian boyfriend was living in a guest house with lots of other Iranians on overstayed visas who were taken away by the police in a raid the following day. He then has more elaborate stories about how he ran around to various places to gather information about this “at-large” suspect with the police thinking he was a friend of the suspect and going nuts trying to find him. Meanwhile the man, who lived with the victim and not in a guest house with many other illegals, had been arrested very soon after his girlfriend’s body had been found.
In this story, Adelstein, failed to even provide the full name of the victim, and he lied about the name of the perpetrator, which is odd since there was an elaborate story in Tokyo Vice about how Adelstein pretended to be a friend of the guy at the gym leading the police to make a composite sketch of him.
Note: There are no articles from 1996 to early 1999 at the end of which Adelstein claimed he was covering Saitama politics.
Article 10 – 1999: Mature Hot Wives Party Palace owner arrested
(An initial search came up blank with those words, but there could be other Japanese words used, so a search is still underway to find newspaper details of this story.)
Article 11 – October 6, 1999: Host Club article
An initial electronic search of the Yomiuri did produce several host club articles in 1999, which was in response to several high profile cases where underage girls had gotten snared into host clubs and subsequent large bills, which they had to pay off by working as prostitutes. But these articles, which were very brief, were focusing on the criminal side of this phenomenon and not like the article Adelstein described. In other words, the article described in Tokyo Vice does not seem to exist.
Article 12 – Late September 2000: Cloning article.
Adelstein claimed that a Yomiuri photographer needed a photo of a baby for a cloning article and came to the hospital to take a photo of his son, who was born on September 17, 2000. According to Adelstein, a photo of his son then appeared on the front page of the Yomiurui with the cloning article a week later. However, an initial search found no baby photos on the front page or any pages in the Yomiuri for weeks after that date. Moreover, an electronic search for “cloning” in the Yomiuri did not show any articles anytime near that date. Once again, here is an article that does not seem to exist.
Note: From 2000 through 2003, Adelstein claims to be covering cases from the Lucy Blackman homicide (July 2000), Kabukicho fire (Aug. 2001), Eiju Kim murder scene (Nov. 2002), to IT crime (2003), but there no specific claims of articles associated with these.
Articles 13 – Mid Nov. to Dec. 2003: “Two Million Dollars Seized from Emperor of Loan Shark’s Safe Deposit Box.”
(A search is still underway to find newspaper details of this story.)
Article 14 – February 8, 2004: Foreign women trafficking article.
This article was real and Adelstein even has a byline but there is a Japanese reporter whose name comes first. Adelstein referred to this as the “morning” edition” but February 8 was a Sunday and there was only one issue on Sunday, which apparently comes out in the morning.
There is no mention of Viktor or Slick Imai in this article, and it is a much less exaggerated version of the story compared to the Tokyo Vice version.
Adelstein claimed that in May 2005, “drug squad raided Slick’s clubs, and he went out of business” and “Viktor was beaten by local yakuza for infringing on their turf after someone gave his name to them.” Then, “Viktor wound up behind bars.” But amid all of this Adelstein cannot be bothered to provide the reals names of Slick Imai and Viktor, nor details of the trial, conviction, and jail term. Why not?
It is interesting to note here that according to electronic searching of the Yomiuri, this was the only byline Jake Adelstein every had in the Yomiuri Shimbun during his entire career at the Yomiuri. He had about 3 bylines in the English version of that newspaper, the Daily Yomiuri.
Article 15 – June 23/24, 2004: “Japan: Kingdom of Human Trafficking? American Wants Japan to Criminalize Human Trafficking.”
Adelstein claimed that he published an article in the Daily Yomiuri on June 24, 2004, “Japan: Kingdom of Human Trafficking? American Wants Japan to Criminalize Human Trafficking,” but this article does not exist, and the claim is a lie. An article titled “Strengthening penalties, including establishment of new laws, toward eradicating trafficking of foreign women.” appeared in Yomiuri Shimbun with no byline and the following background.
On June 23 and 24, 2004, Vital Voices, the US Embassy in Japan, and the International Labor Organization (ILO) hosted a two-day conference, “Strategies for Combating Human Trafficking in Asia,” in Tokyo, Japan. Adelstein claimed that he was a “panelist.” This claim is still being investigated, but Adelstein appears to have at least been in attendance at the conference. From his position as a “panelist” Adelstein further claimed that he went on a “tirade” against the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department during the conference stating that their directive against human trafficking was “worthless piece of self-serving crap.”
Adelstein further claimed, “The next morning, my article on the conference came out with the headline “Japan: Kingdom of Human Trafficking? American Wants Japan to Criminalize Human Trafficking.” Normally, you know, reporters don’t get to choose their headlines, but I’d taken extra care to make sure that I got the headline I wanted. I only had to buy an 8,000-yen bottle of sake for one of the guys in layout.”
In fact, the headline for the Yomiuri 438-character article the next day, June 24, 2004, with no byline was, “Strengthening penalties, including establishment of new laws, toward eradicating trafficking of foreign women.” The main points of this brief article, which can be read online at the link below were:
https://web.archive.org/web/20040624043444/http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/politics/news/20040624i201.htm
(1) On June 23, the Japanese government decided to strengthen existing laws and make new laws aimed at eradicating human trafficking.
(2) The government will hold a conference on July 6 to discuss a concrete plan on how the four departments of justice, foreign affairs, public welfare and labor cooperate on this problem.
(3) This conference is in response to increasing international criticism of japan from the second annual U.S. State Department report on human trafficking.
(4) Currently human trafficking is only covered under the Anti-Prostitution Law while there are no laws to stop and punish human trafficking comprehensively.
(5) Existing punishments are too light, so new legislation is needed.
(6) The government will also consider promoting to foreign women the existence of facilities for assisting victims.
But in Tokyo Vice, Adelstein goes on to write about the next day at the conference, June 24:
“When I got to the conference that day, a trio of irate Japanese bureaucrats stood waiting for me. One was from the NPA, one from the Ministry of Justice, and one from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The MOFA official was a woman, and it was obvious she had been picked to do the honors because she could speak English. While the others stood behind her, she waved the newspaper in front of my face. ‘This headline is inexcusable,’ she said, forgetting herself and speaking to me in Japanese. I took the paper from her and studied the headline. ‘You’re right,’ I said. “This headline should have been corrected. The question mark after ‘Japan: A Kingdom of Human Trafficking’ should be an exclamation point. And the part about the American is unimportant. The whole headline should read ‘Japan: Kingdom of Human Trafficking! As Bad as North Korea?’”
Firstly, Adelstein grossly lied about the title of the June 24, Yomiuri Article. Then, there is no byline attributing the article to Adelstein, and finally the actual contents of the article were mundane, matter of fact, and exactly what the Japanese officials has been saying in their speeches at the conference. Thus, there would be no reason for these Japanese officials to confront Adelstein and shake this article in his face.
Article 16 – June 26 Govt must act on human trafficking
After the June 24 Yomiuri Shimbun article, the usual English translation or derivative of the Japanese article appeared in the Daily Yomiuri, which is standard practice. On June 26, 2004, the headline in the Daily Yomiuri read, “Govt must act on human trafficking” with the byline “Jake Adelstein Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writer.”
https://web.archive.org/web/20040626113738/http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/index-e.htm
http://www.childtrafficking.org/…/govt_must_act_on_human_trafficking.doc
This is an original story by Adelstein in the Daily Yomiuri and not the Yomiuri Shimbun. This article includes two brief stories about individual victims and shows a few flashes of unfavorable language toward Japan, but it is still overall just a report on the conference with most of its contents mundane. This could have been an article that a Japanese official might want to shake in Adelstein’s face, but it did not come out until two days after the conference ended.
Some of the initial research on this June conference was difficult because Adelstein, the crack Yomiuri organized crime reporter, got the title of the conference wrong in his June 26 article, calling it “Strategies for Human Trafficking in Asia.” After adding “combatting” to the title or “Strategies for Combatting Human Trafficking in Asia” information turned up much more quickly in Google searches.
Article 17 – November 19, 2004 “Yomiuri front page article on human trafficking based on ILO study.”
Adelstein wrote in Tokyo Vice, “It was the Yomiuri’s front-page story on November 19, 2004. I had to fight to get it decent coverage, but it was worth it. I followed up with another article the next day.”
In fact, the Nov. 19, 2004 Article was titled “Treating foreign female victims as criminals… Report on the actual state of human trafficking” (approx. 500 Japanese characters or 280 English words in a translation)
Adelstein wrote, “The Japanese government ordered the ILO to keep the report under wraps; it would never be published. I knew it existed, however, and through certain channels I got a copy. It was the Yomiuri’s front-page story on November 19, 2004. I had to fight to get it decent coverage, but it was worth it. I followed up with another article the next day. My source told me that the government had been preparing to announce a plan of action for dealing with human trafficking and that my article had spurred drastic revisions to strengthen protection of the victims. I felt that as a reporter I’d finally done something that made a difference, however small it might be.”
Firstly, it is a lie that the ILO kept this report under wraps and that it was never published. It was indeed published and soon after loaded to the Internet for anyone in the world to read. It is still there:
Click to access r-japantrafficking.pdf
A very brief article did appear in the Yomiuri on this date in regard to the ILO report.
“Treating foreign female victims as criminals… Report on the actual state of human trafficking” (accurate translation of the actual Yomiuri article title)
https://web.archive.org/web/20041121063743/http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/national/news/20041119it06.htm
Article 18 – November 20, 2004. Human Trafficking article
Adelstein claimed that he published his own follow-up article the following day, but no such article can be found in the Yomiuri on November 20 or any of the subsequent days. Therefore, this claim in Tokyo Vice appears to be a fabrication. There was, however, a translation of the November 19 Yomiuri article in the English Daily Yomiuri on November 22, 2004 (not the next day but three days later). If that is what Adelstein is referring to as his “follow-up” articles, Tokyo Vice readers should take not that the Daily Yomiuri article was nothing more than an accurate translation of the original Japanese article with one glaring exception. “Japan blasted” was inserted into the title. Therefore, Adelstein’s contribution to the story seems to be that of a translator who snuck his own sensational headline. Readers should also note that this “blasting Japan” theme would become a constant moniker for Adelstein most of his subsequent work.
“Japan blasted over human trafficking”
https://web.archive.org/web/20041120093027/http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/index-e.htm
It should be noted that the contents of the Nov. 19 Japanese article in the Yomiuri Shimbun, which was small in size, had been accurately translated but “Japan blasted” was inserted into the title during the translation for the Nov. 22 English article in the Daily Yomiuri. It seems that Adelstein’s “follow up” article was nothing more than an English translation that appeared in the Daily Yomiuri three days later with the title mistranslated. Note the pattern starting of the self-righteous Adelstein “blasting” Japan.
It is also noteworthy that the article says that the ILO report was distributed to “relevant non-profit and government organizations.” Therefore, the article itself contradicts Adelstein’s assertion that the report was “kept under wraps.” Its presence on the Internet since 2005 is definitive evidence that Adelstein lied about this report being suppressed.
In regard to “my article” and “I’d finally done something that made a difference,” Adelstein could be referring to the original very brief article in Japanese, which he claims to have been a part of and could be true. However, he states that he wrote another article in Japanese, which appeared “the next day,” and it was this article or “his article” that had made a difference. The reality of the situation is that Adelstein appears to have only translated a 200-plus-word article that appeared three days later while inserting his own dramatic title.
Adelstein wrote “There’s a certain charge and power derived from being on a crusade. Self-righteous anger can really motivate you. I had done some things I wasn’t proud of, but compared to the flesh traders I was writing about, I was the Dalai Lama, at least in my mind. And I was angry. I was angry that, although human trafficking was rampant in the country at the time, the Japanese police and the Japanese government didn’t care and didn’t want to deal with it.”
A more accurate statement would be, “There’s a certain charge and power derived from having everyone believe that I’m a great man who rights the wrongs in Japan.” Just like the phony Navy seal Adelstein is basking in the glory of having people think that he is an Yomiuri organized crime reporter.
