There have been various scandals about YouTubers, proving that these new kinds of celebrities are as fallible as the rest of us. But this one is quite a bit more serious than the others.
A former member of the YouTuber group Kindan Boys (禁断ボーイズ) has been arrested on suspicion of prostitution.
According to various media reports on February 14, Mohrii (Kohei Mori) is accused of recruiting clients via a dating app by posing as a woman. Another four members of an alleged prostitution ring were also arrested. Mori’s role was to send messages and reel patrons in.
Police believe the ring comprised as many as 20 people and made ¥170 million in the two years and nine months until January 2023. It is believed that Mori and the other four core members didn’t know each other by sight, and communicated only by social media.
Mori is accused of being a decoy and sending messages to men on the dating/matching app by pretending to be a woman. He would initiate a papakatsu (sugar daddy) or enjo kosai (compensated dating) arrangement whereby the men would agree to pay the woman for sex at least the first time. Once he had reeled the unsuspecting man in, Mori would then contact the women the group had waiting on standby, and inform her about the backstory he had concocted as well as the details about her upcoming date.
The women then paid the prostitution ring a cut of the money she received from her date. Mori then presumably got his cut of that money.
When police raided his home, neighbors said they had hardly ever seen him. It seems he was always inside, no doubt busy tapping out messages to prospective dates.
Kindan Boys was a popular group in the mid-2010s, known for its videos shot outdoors, but it went on hiatus in 2017 due to a controversy over a now-defunct cryptocurrency service called VALU. Boasting 1.7 million subscribers at its height, it formally disbanded in August 2022. The other former members of the group apparently continue to work as YouTubers or as production staff for other YouTubers.
But not Mori, who was seemingly busy making money for himself in another industry altogether.
