TOKYO —

Tokyo police said Monday they busted a child pornography ring alleged to have made more than a million dollars running a “factory” producing obscene DVDs.

Officers arrested Jun Amaya and six other men suspected of selling “a DVD depicting sexual scenes of children”, a police spokesman said.

They were arrested in a Tokyo building on Nov 26 but police are continuing investigations amid suspicions of further wrongdoing, the official said.

Jiji Press news agency said the men had run “a manufacturing factory” of child porn DVDs on a floor of the building equipped with 26 computers and 19 DVD copying machines.

They racked up profits of 110 million yen selling some 300,000 DVDs through their websites since July last year, Jiji said.

They made the DVDs with images lifted from the Internet and copied them from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily, with Amaya giving a monthly salary of 250,000 yen to each of the six other men, Jiji said.

Police have confiscated three truck loads of machines, DVDs and other items, the private Asahi television network said.

Japan is considered a major provider of child pornography and the United States and other developed countries have accused it of laxness in dealing with the problem.

Wire reports

Latest 15 of 24 Total Comments Show All

• 

  billclinton at 09:43 PM JST - 16th December

  Well, I suppose if you are counting the 300,000 DVDs as one count each, and the servers they lifted the images from as one count each, it could appear that way.

  These are not facts. These are "anti Japanese sentiments" from white superior thinking gaijins. Get a life escapists. You will find worse in your own country if you dare to look.

• 

  medievaltimes at 10:24 PM JST - 16th December

  You will find worse in your own country if you dare to look.

  Really? I've looked pretty closely. It's pretty easy to see. Lots of Japanese men have a thing for young girls.

• 

  medievaltimes at 10:27 PM JST - 16th December

  Can someone confirm for me? Is it true it is against the law to have child porn only if there is intent to sell? Meaning posession of child porn is not a crime in Japan?

• 

  Orangeporange at 10:45 PM JST - 16th December

  Midievaltimes, yes you are correct. I just read on the US embassy website that possession of child porn is not illegal in Japan. They are trying to change that.

• 

  franz75 at 11:31 PM JST - 16th December

  "They are trying to change that.". when you think that tax hike on whatever takes a few weeks, how come this doesn't change...

• 

  usaexpat at 01:02 AM JST - 17th December

  So they weren't actually producing the kiddie porn per se but distributing porn they lifted from elsewhere. These guys may be disgusting but the real issue is that they were in business because there's a market. The question is how to kill the market for this sick stuff.

• 

  usaexpat at 01:03 AM JST - 17th December

  ninjaboy: where are you getting that statistic? I was led to believe that the bulk of child porn comes from Russia and former eastern block countries.

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  BlackFlag at 01:06 AM JST - 17th December

  The question is how to kill the market for this sick stuff.

  make possession illegal

• 

  usaexpat at 01:20 AM JST - 17th December

  BlackFlag I agree that's a step in the right direction but there will still be a market.

• 

  ptolemy at 01:53 AM JST - 17th December

  Will they now remove the child porn from the book stores and conbinis? When will they arrest the adult salarydrones and oyagi for reading the kiddie porn manga on trains?

• 

  681472 at 03:46 AM JST - 17th December

  how about concentrating on battling the crimes or exploitation where there actually are any victims first?

  (victims other than the authors dignity then)

• 

  681472 at 08:38 AM JST - 17th December

  http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,1906159,00.html

  surprise...

• 

  archiebald at 08:50 AM JST - 17th December

  Yep, read the last paragraph of that report.

  50% from the U.S. 25% from Russia

  So how is 88% coming from Japan?

• 

  bcbrownboy at 09:32 AM JST - 17th December

  Interesting stats: "Amaya giving a monthly salary of 250,000 yen to each of the six other men" - but did he pay taxes/retirement, etc. It seems that money is more important than the disgusting behavior.

• 

  medievaltimes at 09:45 AM JST - 17th December

  Ninja's stats are a bit old...per wikipedia.

  A study done by the Socioeconomic Research Department at the Nomura Institute of Research showed that in 97 percent of book stores and convenience stores surveyed in 1996 sold “pornographic portrayals of children in either photographic or cartoon form”[7]. Moreover, as of 1998, Japan was the source of 80 percent of the commercial child pornography available on the Internet[8]. Actually, it was not until 1999 that Japan joined the international community in banning child pornography, not out of moral concern, but more so because of the bad publicity the country was receiving[6].

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