crime

14 men, aged 16-45, busted over national child pornography ring

43 Comments

Fourteen men between the ages of 16 and 45 have been arrested for breaking child pornography laws and committing public displays of obscenity, police said Monday.

The men allegedly posted videos depicting sexual acts involving juveniles on their blogs and used their mobile phones to run an illegal child pornography website.

Police discovered the child porn ring after receiving tips via a special Internet hotline that accepts reports of illegal activities online. This was the first time information from the center was used in such a large national operation, police said.

© News reports

©2024 GPlusMedia Inc.

43 Comments
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14 men and boys? Anyway throw the book.

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Why is it to me this is great yet shocking news, but to most of my J colleagues (male, female, young and old) the news does not seem to bother them so much.. I think this general 'shoganai' attitude towards child porn is very disturbing.

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Tokyokawasaki - I must admit I find the legal background a bit ambiguous in Japan. You've got a national age of consent of 13, with prefectural regulations shifting it anywhere between 16 and 18, and then this national legislation about child porn setting the age at 18 (in line with international norms). There seems to be a lack of consistency in Japanese law in terms of what constitutes a "child" in sexual terms and I think that what they actually need to do is reform all the sex and sexual offenses laws and set one age nation-wide. I'd say that 18 is probably a realistic number.

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name them and shame them

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FINALLY they start busting the perps instead of just ASKING servers to not advertise the sites! Keep it up! I hope this instance emboldens the hotline to report such things more and more to the authorities. Good on them!

Now, what's their punishment going to be?

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Frungy, I don't think you should be confusing the "age of consent" issue with child pornography. This is a very different issue.

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Yeah, really. Keep it up guys. I guess they're finally getting serious about this stuff. It's about time. Anyway, I'm thinking 18 is a good number too. BTW tokyokawasaki, my wife certainly does not take a "shoganai" attitude towards this stuff. It's sick.

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Another excellent step in the right direction! I am honestly so sick of all of the rhetoric about child porn balanced against artistic expression.. and whether Nihon needs to illegalize possession of child porn or not; those arguments are absolute rubbish and child porn is absolute filth.

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Big deal! Only 14 offenders? And the J-flops are boasting about it. They should be embarrassed! You could add at least 4 zeros to that number to get close to the amount of sick perves running around in this society.

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Eyeblack - I don't think you understood my post. What I was pointing out was that in some parts of Japan it's okay to have sex as young as 14, but it's not okay to film it or even take a picture of your naked partner. In most places in Japan it's 16, and the same applies, it's okay to have sex but not to produce any images.

That's sending mixed messages to the public over what constitutes a "child" in sexual terms and this confusion is being parlayed into a general ambivalence about the issue.

I'm saying that bringing all the sexual offences legislation into line on a single age of consent, age at which it's considered child pornography, etc, would help create a clear public perception on the age at which one is sexually an adult in Japan. At the moment it's a mess and it's going to result in legal loopholes that let these guys go free.

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child porn is illegal here? could have fooled me

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Debucho: distributing it is illegal, owning it is not illegal. The law seriously needs to change.

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Get rid of the sexual anime child porn things for starts. That might be where these stupid losers start from.

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I have to hide my kid's eyes in a convenience store in fear that the bikini girls are his age! Had no idea Japanese had any problem with exploiting kids for porn. The moral level here regarding this issue is very low.

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Crimes against children are the worst, period.

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I think one of the reasons there is such perceived "indifference" toward child porn in Japan is because we have a different image of what it is.

When someone says child porn in Sweden, most people think of a young (elementary school age or younger) girl, kidnapped and exploited for money. Whereas, in Japan, most people probably think of a high school girl doing enjou kousai and allowing it to be filmed.

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The women here are equally liable for the child porn activities. Some women working along side men, and do not clearly understand exactly what they are doing. For some it is a way of making money.Plenty of women working in those publishing houses. Why cannot the government get the women here to take an active role in eradicating porn.

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how many rings remaining?

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What a horrible, horrible culture. Not only are kids exploited here but also exposed to sex in comic books! That wouldn't happen in the Western world where priests at least have the decency to cover kids' eyes while performing lewd sex acts on their innocent bodies.

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These disgusting men should be executed.

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T is a deeply seated part of Japanese culture. How many children's ankle programs have teenage girls running around with their asses hanging out of super short skirts. You only have to watch all the suits tracking young bums up the stairs at train platforms to get an idea how perverted such a large percentage of the male population is. I remember my grandfather told me thatastibation will make you go blind. I guess that's why so many men in Japan wear glasses. :-D

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Good Job! But only 14 men from all over the Japan.

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Geesh. Some of these child-porn posters are children themselves...ugh.

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Kameleon said: Crimes against children are the worst, period.

Yup. And I seem to have missed the part about where they caught the people that committed crimes against children. I am going to be pretty angry if I found out that precious man-hours and tax money were spent and not one of them actually committed a crime against a child.

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16 year old man???? geez.. what is this young man getting involved for?? he should be dating kids his age

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ivebert said: he should be dating kids his age

Maybe pictures of kids his own age are all he can get. They call that child porn you know.

Of course what makes them really sick is the fact that the pics had no mosaic.

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"ivebert said: he should be dating kids his age

Maybe pictures of kids his own age are all he can get. They call that child porn you know.

Of course what makes them really sick is the fact that the pics had no mosaic."

Hmm...if what other posters say is correct, that child porn in Japan more often consists of high school girls than elementary-aged children as Westerns tend to think of, I wonder what kind of porn this 16 year old boy was distributing? Is it like "sexting" in the U.S., where some classmate sent him a naked picture and he sent it to other people?

I wonder what the kid (because if 16 year old girls are considered children, than this 16 year old boy should not be categorized as a man) did to be considered in violation of these laws.

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LogP2P with another program called LogIRC is now used by hundreds of law enforcement in countries throughout the world, to track down people exchanging so called illegal content.

Remember that 72 year old english teacher in Fukuoka ? I wonder what fingered his peer 2 peer file exchange ? If you can speak Japanese talk to your local man on the beat and inform the J/cops to work with the rest of the world.

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I guess becasue the 16yr old did a crime. Quiet a few teens being arrested for running prostitution rings, etc.

That is one thing that many people don't get enjo-kousai, etc is driven by the teens not by the Oyaji's.

Nobody is forcing those teens to upload their data to dating sites, etc.

As for sentencing that happens quiet some time after the arrest and will usually only appear in smaller newsprint as it is not as dramatic and attention getting than the latest news. Don't think JT even reports it.

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Wonders why 16 year old minors are being arrested. Also I never seem to hear about these perverts getting sentenced.

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I really enjoyed reading this story,

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Geesh. Some of these child-porn posters are children themselves...ugh.

It's called "child grooming" practiced by the real perverts who are usually close family members .

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Dude the 16 year old was the main man of the whole project! He would get some of his friends from school and introduce them to OJISANS w/ mulah and then film them and then sell the shots on line. I bet he must have made a cool fortune ... Sad thing is that he is still a minor and that he will be released to his parents and then still keep all of the mulah that he collected..

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Hmm...since when is 16 in Japan the legal age to be an adult male in Japan? Sorry, but under Japanese law, it is still 20 years and above to be considered an adult, so this 16 to 45 mess is WRONG!

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And I seem to have missed the part about where they caught the people that committed crimes against children.

Fourteen men between the ages of 16 and 45 have been arrested for breaking child pornography laws....

The men allegedly posted videos depicting sexual acts involving juveniles on their blogs and used their mobile phones to run an illegal child pornography website.

= Crimes against children.

Not sure what you mean: either sarcasm or you're in need of help with reading.

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Kameleon, 16 year olds are still children themselves. They need counseling and the adults need to go to jail to spend their time eating, sleeping, working and thinking about their crimes. No TV sets, no chitchatting, just hard time.

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YuriOtani said:

Wonders why 16 year old minors are being arrested.

It's called getting arrested for breaking the law. Japan's policies regarding minors don't eliminate the fact that a 16-year-old should be held accountable for his actions. It may shock you, but at that age they DO know the difference between wrong and right... At least as far as distributing pornography is concerned.

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Fadamor, Americans like to treat children as adults when coming to crime. This turns them into hardened criminals. These 16 year olds are victims more than criminals. They were pressured to doing these crimes by those adult perverts. I think surgical alteration is a cure to the adult perverts problem behavior. It will set right their hormone in-balance.

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Kameleon, the people who took the pictures may have committed crimes against children. Anyone who instigated or asked for the pictures to be taken may have committed crimes against children. People who just looked at the pictures did not commit crimes against children. To say otherwise is to say that when we watch the show "COPS" and a police officer gets cranked by a suspect, we are guilty of crimes against police. I read just fine. The trouble here is your logic skills.

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"People who just looked at the pictures did not commit crimes against children" keep in mind that in Japan, one can buy "rape em" at the local Amazon store. my point is that if this is labeled "child porn"... these are not college art photos depicting the grace of children.

These photos would have to be really bad.

and I disagree with the above that 16 year olds are somewhat innocent. Kids are not pure. They can be just as corrupt and manipulating as an adult. Charge them as adults! They have made adult decisions.

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YuriOtani-- Pressured by whom?? There are plenty of 16 year olds who freely get on the internet and search for porn. No one tells them to do this, but they are at the age where they are perfectly capable to making that kind of decision on their own, and they know the difference between right and wrong. It's only different because they're kids that they are probably more stupid about it and think they can't get caught for it. I'm not saying that a stupid kid has to be put on the same level as an ADULT who definitely should know better, but 16 year olds need to get the appropriate punishments as well.

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airrunwesker, this is Japan and teens are not adults. In America they put 12 year old children on trial as adults sometimes. Japan does not have to have the same laws as America. kokorocloud, children can be pressured by adults to do things they usually would not. They could of been plied by alcohol. We do not know what the material consisted of and thus can only make wild guesses. It it was there 16 year old friends it would be one thing but if it as 12 and under I would be a lot less forgiving of the 16 year old perps.

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sickos -__-

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