Japan’s hot spring perverts circulated photos of 10,000 women over 30 years: police
- Karin Saito, 50, admitted to being the ringleader of a network that secretly recorded women bathing in traditional outdoor hot springs
- The 16 arrested men – which included local officials – used top camera equipment and hid in bushes, before holding viewing parties of the footage, police said
Police in Shizuoka Prefecture, a popular weekend destination from nearby Tokyo and famed for its hot springs, confirmed earlier this month that 16 men had been taken into custody in connection with the case.
Quoting police officers, the Asahi newspaper identified the ringleader as Karin Saito, 50, who admitted to filming more than 10,000 women over 30 years.
Saito’s case is still being heard in the courts, although he is understood to have identified more than a dozen other men that he shared explicit images and video footage with.
Shizuoka police have sent files on the men – who reportedly include a doctor from Tokyo, senior company executives and local government officials – to prosecutors on suspicion they violated nuisance prevention ordinances. Images they took were also understood to violate laws on child pornography.
Saito told police he started his activities as a voyeur when he was 20 years old and had viewed women at more than 100 public and private outdoor onsen. He shared tips on how to best capture images of women without being detected, they added.
According to the police, the men invested in high-quality video and photographic equipment, including telephoto lenses, and concealed themselves in the undergrowth on hillsides overlooking open-air hot springs. The group shared video and image files, creating videos with added subtitles, as well as holding get-togethers to screen videos.
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“This is shocking and I have to say that voyeurism for the purpose of obtaining naked images of someone of the opposite sex simply has to be severely punished,” said Yutaka Seki, executive director of the Japan Hot Springs Association.
“Illicit and unauthorised photography and filming is, of course, prohibited in all onsen and similar establishments,” he said. “But new technology, such as miniaturisation of cameras, makes it quite difficult to eradicate entirely.”
He feared that coverage of the arrests and, in particular, the revelation that the group had been taking illicit footage across Japan for three decades, would put some women off visiting hot springs, known as onsen, at a time when the industry was already struggling to attract customers after three difficult years during the coronavirus pandemic.
He urged hot spring operators to think of ways to make women feel comfortable and secure, instead of imposing “new prohibition”.
“I am very much in favour of both sexes being able to bathe together in a friendly and safe manner, but incidents such as this attract bad publicity and worry people,” he added. “And that makes my hope of mixed, communal bathing – as used to be the case in the past – more difficult.”
Hiro Miyatake, founder of the Bear Luxe Corp network of travel companies that include high-end hotels and ryokan that often feature outdoor hot springs, said it was “inevitable” that the arrests would attract attention and cause concern among people who like to visit hot springs, including foreigners.
“It’s quite disturbing,” he said. “An onsen is meant to be a place where anyone can go and be completely relaxed. It’s an important part of Japanese culture and something that all foreigners want to do while they are visiting, but incidents like this can seriously hurt that image.”
Police have not confirmed how Saito was eventually caught, although it has been reported that the group held parties where they drugged women with sleeping pills before committing indecent acts and filming them.
Saito has said he had communicated with around 100 other voyeurs and authorities are attempting to trace his contacts.
