Overview of the Case
By June 11, 2026, the Public Safety Division of the Metropolitan Police Department arrested three men and women on suspicion of public indecency for showing obscene acts to an unspecified large number of viewers using the overseas adult live-streaming site "Stripchat." The Sankei Shimbun, Nippon Television, and other outlets reported the case.
Those arrested were Shinya Shinkawa (31), unemployed, of Higashi-Nakano, Nakano Ward, Tokyo; Shosei Tomizuka (27), unemployed, of Kabukicho, Shinjuku Ward; and Momoko Miyajima (22), a part-time staff member of an educational corporation, of Mizonokuchi, Takatsu Ward, Kawasaki City. According to the reports, the three are alleged to have conspired to stream obscene acts on the site from a hotel room in Kabukicho, Tokyo, on the night of April 13, 2026, having viewers watch them.
The Method of the Stream
According to the reports, the stream was made available free for about the first 30 minutes, with about 100 viewers at the outset and up to about 8,000 viewers at the peak. After the free period elapsed, it switched to a paid stream, with a system that made users who continued watching pay about 120 yen per minute in cryptocurrency (tokens) usable on the site.
The main figures reported are as follows.
- Streaming platform: the overseas adult live-streaming site "Stripchat"
- Stream in question: the night of April 13, 2026, from a hotel room in Kabukicho
- Number of viewers: about 100 when free, up to about 8,000 at the peak
- Charging method: paid after the free period (about 30 minutes), charging the equivalent of about 120 yen per minute in cryptocurrency
- Revenue from this stream: said to be about 1 million yen
"About 200 People and 100 Million Yen in About a Year"
According to investigation sources, Shinkawa, believed to be the leading offender, is thought to have repeated about 500 streams with about 200 women appearing over the roughly one year from around June 2025 to around June 2026, taking in about 100 million yen in total. There is also reporting that Tomizuka took in a cumulative total of about 5 million yen from similar streams.
The pleas of the three are not addressed in detail in the various outlets' reporting, and whether they currently admit the allegations cannot be confirmed. As for the date of the stream, while the Sankei Shimbun reported "April 13 of this year (2026)," some reports differ in how the timing is described, and the details are expected to be examined in the course of the future investigation and trial.
The Crime of Public Indecency and "an Unspecified Large Number"
The provision applied this time was the crime of public indecency under Article 174 of the Penal Code (imprisonment of up to six months or a fine of up to 300,000 yen, among other penalties). This offense is established when an obscene act is performed "publicly"—that is, in a state where an unspecified or large number of people can perceive it.
Whereas the typical examples used to be acts in physical locations such as on the street or at event venues, in recent years acts directed at an unspecified large number of people on the internet—such as live streams that can be viewed simultaneously by up to about 8,000 people—have also become targets of crackdowns, on the basis that they satisfy "public" character. The reasoning is that even an act in the closed setting of a hotel room amounts to public indecency if it reaches a large number of viewers through a live stream.
Background: The Difficulty of Crackdowns Created by Cross-Border Platforms and Cryptocurrency
This case throws into relief two structural issues surrounding the distribution of sexual content.
First is the point that the platform is overseas. Streaming sites like "Stripchat" often have their servers and operating entities outside the country, making it hard for Japanese regulation to reach them directly. On the other hand, if the streaming side (the performers and operators) is within the country, then since the place of the act is Japan, Japanese criminal law can be applied. This crackdown can be said to be a way of cutting into cross-border streaming by building a public-indecency case against the domestic performers and organizers rather than the site itself.
Second is the point that payment is made in cryptocurrency (tokens). Charging via in-site currency or tokens makes the flow of funds hard to trace, and makes it difficult to grasp who earned how much. If the figure of about 100 million yen in about a year is accurate, it suggests that such streaming may have been operated not as a one-off way to earn pocket money, but as a systematic, continuous revenue business.
Regulation surrounding adult entertainment has been forced to play catch-up each time the center of gravity of how money is made shifts—from the storefront type to the delivery type, and then to online streaming. Live streaming, which has no physical "shop," cannot be fully captured by the storefront-operation framework that the revised Businesses Affecting Public Morals Regulation Act focuses on, and the crime of public indecency under the Penal Code is being used as a de facto brake. With the combination of overseas sites, cryptocurrency, and at-home streaming expected to spread further, the question is how far investigative authorities can track the reality.
This article is compiled from reporting by the Sankei Shimbun, Nippon Television (NNN), Livedoor News, and others. All allegations are at the investigation stage and are not established facts.