Secretly Filming Women at Outdoor Hot Springs Across Japan
Hiding in Nearby Mountains to Shoot with Telephoto Cameras
"Professionals and Executives..." Shocking Japanese Society
Sixteen members of a 'molka' (hidden camera) group who secretly filmed female visitors while touring open-air hot springs across Japan were arrested after more than a year of police investigation.
The arrested individuals include professionals such as government officials, doctors, and corporate executives, causing shock in Japanese society.
The leader, a man in his 50s, was found to have secretly filmed over 10,000 women over approximately 30 years.
According to the Asahi Shimbun on the 3rd, the Shizuoka Prefectural Police sent three individuals?Mr. A (31, doctor, Tokyo), Mr. B (20, unemployed, Tochigi Prefecture), and Mr. C (54, unemployed, Hokkaido)?to prosecutors on charges including violation of the Child Pornography Prohibition Act. They had formed a 'molka' group through social networking services (SNS) and operated together. Mr. A is suspected of sharing videos of naked underage females with others in September 2021.
The police launched an operation to arrest the group members over more than a year after arresting the leader, Saito Garin (50), in December 2021. As a result, a total of 16 people were arrested across 11 prefectures (todofuken). Among the suspects were national and local government officials as well as private company executives.
The police conducted searches at 80 locations nationwide and seized over 1,200 pieces of evidence, including hard disks and computers.
The group, centered around Saito, held meetings to share hidden camera techniques and information. They mainly used a method of camping in the mountains hundreds of meters away from open-air hot spring baths and filming women bathing with high-performance telephoto cameras.
The police plan to continue the investigation based on Saito's statement that the number of people identified through the hidden camera organization has reached around 100. [Photo by Kim Dahee, Asia Economy]
Moreover, they assigned specific roles such as filming women bathing inside the hot springs, filming women dressed before and after bathing, and inserting obscene subtitles at the bottom of the videos. They also drugged women they knew with sleeping pills, engaged in obscene acts, and recorded these on video.
The videos were not sold but shared within the group under the name of 'screenings.'
Saito, nicknamed the 'charisma of hidden camera filming,' reportedly told the police, "I started filming secretly at age 20 and have filmed in over 100 locations, capturing more than 10,000 women." It was revealed that he filmed in 46 of Japan's 47 prefectures, excluding Okinawa Prefecture.
The police plan to continue the investigation based on Saito's statement that he knows about 100 people through the molka organization.
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