Tokyo police seen reluctant to crack down on Nigerian crime over fear of racism accusations

Jan 22, 2013 Adam Westlake National 17

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It’s no surprise that a great number of the night clubs operating in Tokyo are managed by those with ties to organized crime. But over the last decade, the increase in crimes committed by foreigners, most notably Nigerians, working at seedy clubs has increased. This was highlighted by the December arrest of the 42 year old manager of the club Vegas, along with nine others, for stealing 600,000 yen (approx. $6,770) from a customer’s bank account while he was in a drunken stupor.

The Japanese weekly tabloid Shukan Jitsuwa poses that the lack of initiative among Tokyo’s police to crack down on such widespread scams is due to fear of racism accusations. Speaking to the tabloid, one newspaper writer said that often Nigerians who were involved in illegal activities would go to their embassy and claim they were being racially discriminated against. In turn, embassy officials put pressure on the police. A restaurant manager from the Roppongi district said he knew of a low-level organized crime member who roughed up a Kenyan that worked for a rival club. The man then went to the Kenyan embassy calling for tougher action against yakuza violence.

In regard to the employees from Vegas, investigators say that while they were busted for one specific instance, which saw them taking advantage of a 33 year old man, they believe the scam where victims were tricked into giving up their ATM pin numbers had been carried out since 2006, netting them more than 1 billion yen ($11.25 million). The tabloid magazine uses this as evidence for its assumption that Tokyo’s police won’t be changing their behavior anytime soon, instead preferring to keep their “collective head in the sand.”

[via Tokyo Reporter]

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• Crime, Embassy, Nigeria, Police, Racism, Tokyo