Tokyo police arrest head of major sex worker scouting group

Hiroaki Obata, arrested by the Metropolitan Police Department on Monday, is suspected of providing gang members with 600,000 yen in cash through subordinates on July 24, 2023, in exchange for tolerating Natural scouting women mainly on streets of the Udagawacho district in Tokyo's Shibuya Ward.

He allegedly violated a Tokyo metropolitan government ordinance on the fight against organized crime groups. Obata had been publicly wanted.

Obata has remained silent in police questioning following his arrest.

Details of Natural, one of "tokuryu" loosely organized crime groups comprising anonymous members, have remained unknown for a long period partly because the group has been taking thorough measures against police.

Following the arrest of Obata, the MPD aims to uncover the whole picture of Natural, including its relations with gangs.

The police department has received more than 30 tips about Obata since it started to publicly solicit information about the Natural leader Wednesday.

Based on one of the tips, the MPD dispatched investigators to the island city of Amami, Kagoshima Prefecture, southwestern Japan, on Friday and found Obata there Monday.

He was alone and had almost nothing with him when he was captured.

According to investigative sources, Natural began its activities mainly in the Kabukicho nightlife district of Tokyo's Shinjuku Ward around 2009, scouting women and illegally introducing them to sexual service shops across the country.

The number of Natural members has peaked at about 1,500. It earned some 4.5 billion yen a year.

A joint investigation team of the MPD and the police department of Chiba Prefecture, adjacent to Tokyo, searched dozens of sexual service shops related to Natural in prefectures including Tokyo in late January 2025.

Obata went unaccounted for in mid-January that year, just before the search, and the MPD put Obata on the wanted list in November.

The Tokyo police released his portrait this month, seeking information from the public.

While being vigilant against police, Natural grew into a large illegal scouting group by controlling its members with strict rules and building relations with gangs.

Natural, which calls police a "virus," uses its own app to manage its members' work status.

The app is also used for communication among members.

"The app is the nucleus of Natural," a senior MPD official said.

The group operates like a company, with Obata called "chairman" by its members.

Natural has the "virus countermeasure department," which instructs its scouting personnel on how to respond when caught by the police, the "contract department" to look for new client sexual service shops, and the "app department" for the management of the app.

Natural came to be known in 2020, when its members had a brawl with gangsters in Kabukicho.

Following the incident, Natural began working to improve ties with gangs.

It continued expanding its activities by building relations with organized crime groups in many places of the country.

"I was very shocked when I learned about the group. It had grown so large before we realized it," an MPD executive said.