One of the bigger sex industry stories this week: cops arrested five people connected to Louvre, a long-running luxury brothel in Tokyo’s historic Yoshiwara district. The main guy, a 55-year-old operator, got picked up on June 22-23 for breaking the Anti-Prostitution Law.
They say the place pulled in a crazy ¥5.5 billion over about 8.5 years. It had up to 36 women working there, been open since 1983, and served around 20 customers a day. The usual deal? Customers pay ¥30,000 at the front desk for the official “bath service,” then drop another ¥50,000 directly to the woman in the room for the “extra” stuff, making it ¥80,000 for two hours total.
Yoshiwara is that old-school red-light area in east Tokyo still packed with soaplands, even with some gentrification happening. It was already in the news earlier this year because of that big university professor bribery scandal involving soapland visits.
Why this place specifically? Who knows — maybe an unhappy ex-employee tipped them off. In this case, a former worker apparently went online last August spilling the tea with a serious grudge against the boss. Classic story: if you’re raking in that much cash, treat your workers right or they might just rat you out to the cops.
Moral of the story? Pay the ladies fairly — they’re already putting up with a lot!
What do you guys think about these kinds of raids in Yoshiwara? Let me know in the comments.
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