Old-school yakuza may be on the decline, but a recent trial shows how similar today’s “scouts” — who recruit women into Japan’s sex industry — can be to their predecessors: organized, violent and ruthless even toward their own.
Japan’s scout networks are part of a broader category of underground groups classified by police as tokuryū — fluid, anonymous criminal organizations. While they may appear disorganized from the outside, court documents and investigations reveal a rigid, brutal hierarchy beneath the surface, marked by beatings, punishments and internal purges.
Now, major scout groups like Natural and Access are under scrutiny, as authorities uncover a far more systematized and sinister network than previously imagined.
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