Scale of the Bust
On March 12, 2025, the National Police Agency carried out nationwide simultaneous searches targeting a Southeast Asian prostitution network. They searched a total of 35 locations across 20 prefectures and arrested 17 people, including the network's leaders and mid-level managers, on suspicion of violating the Anti-Prostitution Act (baishun boshi-ho), the crime of human trafficking, the Immigration Control Act, and other offenses.
The foreign women who became victims numbered at least 35. They were mainly from Thailand, Vietnam, the Philippines, and Cambodia, and had each entered the country under the categories of "entertainment work" or "food and beverage work."
The Reality of the International Network
What the bust revealed was that the network inside Japan had been working closely with "sending organizations" in several Southeast Asian countries. Authorities confirmed a structure in which sending operators with hubs in Bangkok, Thailand, and Hanoi, Vietnam, "supplied" women to the Japanese network.
Through cooperation with Interpol, the investigation into the organizations on the sending-country side is also progressing.
This article was compiled based on publicly available information.