Filmed live, the May 8 burglary at a Rolex store in Tokyo’s upscale Ginza district has gone viral on the web. Four young people in black outfits and “V For Vendetta” masks smash the windows of the displays and snatch the precious watches, before spinning off in a white Toyota. Arrested the next day, these amateurs aged 16 to 19 hardly benefited from their loot estimated at 2 million euros. But their profile worries Japan.
These young people would have accepted one of these “shadow jobs” – yami-baito in Japanese – of a new kind, which sees criminal organizations recruiting people to carry out illegal activities via social media ads. “Well-paid job”, “guaranteed security” promise these offers sometimes circulating on Twitter. A man prosecuted for an attempted theft in the city of Iwakuni had responded to an advertisement dangling a payment of the equivalent of more than 6000 euros per day.
Once contact has been established, the new employee is encouraged to engage in various misappropriations: “mule” activities to transport drugs or firearms, thefts, phishing on dating sites, identity theft to extract money to the elderly. Thanks to social networks, criminal organizations can operate from other Asian countries. In a recent case, three Japanese mobsters led by a man named Luffy ran a network of fraudsters in Japan from their prison cell in the Philippines, where they were held in very lax conditions. The network ended up being dismantled and the three thugs expelled after a scam resulted in the murder of a 90-year-old woman.
New recruits subject to a strong grip
Another advantage of this system for the principals, if the new recruit is caught, it is difficult to establish a link with them. Especially since they use applications like Telegram or Signal, where exchanges can be erased immediately.
More than 60 people have been arrested to date for their alleged involvement in this type of business since 2021. The individuals recruited are often young people struggling to find work, generally without history, but who want to earn money quickly and without much effort. The police launched a campaign in April “Ban yami-baito” (“Let’s Hunt the Yami-baito”) to educate high school and college students about the dangers of these illegal jobs. Their message: “You can ruin your life by answering a simple request.”
Because yielding to it exposes the performers to a strong grip. A robbery suspect in Tokyo organized by Luffy’s group told investigators that the organization knew his family and home. “I felt like I couldn’t get out of it,” he said.. According to Mikio Uehara, a former prosecutor turned lawyer, the groups take care to keep control over their “employees” by “exerting a mental control such that those caught in the gear cannot imagine that they can escape it”. Better to think twice before accepting a shadow job that pays too well to be honest.