Tokyo police have arrested the head of what they say is the country’s largest sex worker scouting ring on suspicion of paying protection money to an organized crime syndicate.
The Metropolitan Police Department said Monday that it arrested Hiroaki Obata, 40, the fugitive leader of an illegal scouting group known as Natural, on suspicion of violating Tokyo’s anti–organized crime ordinance. Obata was taken into custody on the island of Amami Oshima, Kagoshima Prefecture, after being publicly listed as a wanted suspect by police earlier this month.
The MPD said Obata told investigators, “I have nothing to say at this time.”
Obata is suspected of paying ¥600,000 ($3,886) in July 2023 to a yakuza member as protection money in exchange for allowing his group to continue recruiting women on the streets of Shibuya.
Natural is believed to be part of Japan’s tokuryū, criminal groups that thrive on anonymity and a lack of structure that authorities have been cracking down on in recent years. Its network has long evaded detection through meticulous counter-surveillance measures, but police said Obata’s arrest would allow authorities to accelerate efforts to uncover the full extent of the organization’s operations and its ties to organized crime.
Police said they received more than 30 tips after releasing Obata’s photograph on Wednesday. Investigators were dispatched to Amami on Friday after receiving one of them and located Obata three days later on Monday. He was alone at the time of his arrest and carried almost no belongings, police said.
Investigators say that Natural began operating around 2009 in Tokyo’s Kabukicho entertainment district. It illegally recruited women on the streets and arranged their placement at sex-industry establishments nationwide.
At its peak, the group had about 1,500 members and generated an estimated ¥4.5 billion ($29 million) a year in revenue.
In late January 2025, a joint task force comprising the MPD and Chiba Prefectural Police carried out coordinated raids on dozens of sex-industry businesses across several prefectures that were linked to the group.
Police said Obata disappeared in mid-January 2025 and was placed on a nationwide wanted list in November. Authorities appealed for information this month by releasing his photograph.
Investigators say Natural deployed recruiters known internally as “players” to scout for women on the streets and social media. The scouts handled everything from the initial approach to the scheduling of interviews with operators of sex-work establishments.
Natural enforced rigid rules and surveillance on its members as it rapidly expanded, according to people familiar with the investigation. Those who violated internal rules faced fines and disciplinary measures, while top performers were ranked in tiers such as “diamond” and “platinum” and rewarded based on recruitment results.
The group used a proprietary smartphone app to track work schedules and placements. Scouts used aliases to conceal their identities and members communicated exclusively through the app.
“The app was the backbone of the organization,” a senior MPD official said.
Natural was structured like a corporation, with Obata referred to as the “chairman,” investigators said. It set up internal departments such as a “virus countermeasures division” — it referred to the police as a “virus” — that trained scouts on how to respond during police raids, a “contracts division” that cultivated relationships with sex-industry businesses, and an “app division” that managed the group’s digital platform.
The group first came to light in 2020 after a brawl in Tokyo’s Kabukicho district involving its members and affiliates of the Sumiyoshi-kai crime syndicate. Police then identified Obata, the eldest of three “Kiyama brothers,” and spent about five years unraveling the group’s network.
After the incident, Natural reconsidered its confrontational stance toward the yakuza and accepted settlement terms proposed by the Sumiyoshi-kai, including the payment of reconciliation money.
While maintaining Natural’s scouting operations, Obata and his associates forged relationships with gangs that controlled entertainment districts across the country while expanding the organization.
Within just over a decade, Natural had grown powerful enough — backed by both cash and manpower — to have an equal footing with organized crime groups, investigators said.
“The shock of learning about its existence for the first time was enormous,” a senior police official said. “It had grown into something so big that we couldn’t even see it.”
Be the first to comment