Women who conned men to fund gambling habit arrested

Two women suspected of having run a "pig-butchering scam" have been arrested by the Metropolitan Police Department in Tokyo. The scam saw more than $650,000 in money transferred from the victims to at least one of the suspects.

Damsels in distress, lonely men to the rescue

The scam involved the women deceiving men through dating apps and convincing them that they were interested in them romantically, eventually asking and receiving money from their victims.

That money was then funnelled into various activities. One of the suspects used the proceeds to fund her gambling habits, including playing at Internet casinos and, ironically, visiting male hostess bars.

Hostess bars are a Japanese phenomenon where women (but mostly men) can go, have a drink and converse with a staff member – a male or a female based on the bar’s specificity, emulating an emotional connection.

The two women are said to have conned at least 90 men, and one of the perpetrators, Shizuku Ida, a 27-year-old woman, has been identified by the press. According to various local media outlets, she confessed to police officers that she was guilty.

"I lied to the men to gain their trust. I received money from them and used it to play at an internet casino and visit male hostess bars," Ida told police officers.

Ida had run her act skillfully and had become the focus of the reporting. Although she was unemployed herself, she managed to win the trust of her victims. She posed as a woman who worked at a hostess bar and always approached her victims on a cheerful note.

Money spent on Internet casinos and male company

After striking up a friendly conversation and spending some time on the app with the groomed victims, Ida would open up to them and tell her correspondents about her "troubled past." This would eventually see men cave in and take pity on their new online companion, sending her money to alleviate her distress.

The money was then used on Internet casinos, as noted. She made up her story and personal hardships which involved abusive parents, and being the victim of financial theft – to predispose her victims and imply that she would not be a person to take advantage of others – and even pushing her narrative to the extreme, mulling suicidal thoughts.

Ida had not met any of her victims, managing to elicit a massive amount of money from her victims all the same. Although the original reporting named two women, only Ida’s profile has been publicized in the press at the time of writing.

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