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Julian Ryall

For decades, Japan prided itself on being one of the safest nations in the world. But a troubling new trend is emerging: rising crime.
Fuelled by pandemic-era dislocations and driven by the allure of “quick money” schemes, criminal offences have surged for a second consecutive year, sparking concerns among analysts and law enforcement officials alike.
According to the Japanese justice ministry’s recently released annual white paper, the 2023 financial year saw a 17 per cent rise in reported crimes, reaching 703,351 cases.
More fraud, theft, robberies, and even homicides were reported. It’s the first time in nearly two decades that arrests, too, have increased, with 269,550 people detained – a number not seen since 2004.
But beneath the increase lies a deeper shift in Japan’s criminal underworld.

Analysts point to the growing sophistication of “quick money” gangs operating outside the rigid hierarchies of the traditional yakuza.
These new groups have been emboldened by the rise of yami baito, or “dark part-time jobs”, a phenomenon that has drawn in young, desperate people willing to take part in fraud or theft schemes for fast cash.
Shinichi Ishizuka, founder of the Criminal Justice Future think tank in Tokyo, sees the rise in crime as part of a larger, temporary disruption caused by the pandemic.
“The peaks were in the first couple of years of the new century, but cases have since declined to about one-fifth of those totals,” he said. “I only see this as a short-term issue that is likely to be seen again in next year’s figures, but will start to wane again after that.”


However, the numbers paint a complex picture. While theft still dominates as the most common crime – making up nearly 70 per cent of all reported offences – other crimes, such as fraud and sexual assault, are drawing increasing attention. Fraud cases alone reached 46,011 this year, many of them tied to yami baito.
‘Luffy’ robberies
The growing prevalence of yami baito has alarmed legal experts. These “dark part-time jobs” often lure young people through social media ads or peer recommendations, promising easy money while recruiting them into illegal activities such as fraud or robbery.
The risks became painfully clear in 2021 and 2022, when the so-called “Luffy robberies” shook the nation. A group of 36 Japanese nationals was arrested in a Philippine hotel for orchestrating a telephone fraud and extortion ring. Posing as police officers or government officials, the group allegedly defrauded 1,393 victims of an estimated 2 billion yen (US$12.8 million). One victim, a 75-year-old man in Yokohama, was reportedly assaulted during an attempted scam and later died.
Ishizuka said such crime groups had become “more organised and sophisticated in recent years”, outpacing the more “rigid”, declining yakuza gangs.

“The people who take on yami baito jobs are usually young. They became isolated during the coronavirus lockdown and began to gamble, so they racked up large gambling debts. Now they need money, and when they see these ads on social media, they think it is a get-rich-quick job.”
One of the most concerning aspects of the new crime figures is the rise in arrests among young people. In 2023, 34,768 youths were arrested, a 16 per cent increase over the previous year. For a country where youth crime has historically been rare, the trend is a worrying sign of the pandemic’s lingering social effects.
David Brewster, a criminologist and associate professor at Tokyo Woman’s Christian University, believes the pandemic’s aftermath is a significant factor in the uptick.
“It is perhaps not a surprise that contact crimes have gone up in the last two years because after the coronavirus [pandemic], people are coming into contact with each other once again,” he said.
While the crime statistics are alarming, experts caution against drawing simplistic conclusions. For instance, Japan’s homicide rate – reported as 912 cases in 2023 – appears higher than one might expect, but Ishizuka pointed out that the country’s definition of homicide also includes deaths from driving accidents.
Similarly, while 12,000 cases of sexual assault were reported, some of that increase stems from new laws that make it easier for investigators to file charges against suspects.

Even theft statistics warrant scrutiny. Bicycle thefts make up a significant portion of reported crimes, but Brewster cast doubt on the reliability of the data. “It is not clear whether more people are having their bikes stolen, if more are being reported as stolen, or if the police are recording them as being stolen,” he said.
Despite the troubling trends, Ishizuka remains cautiously optimistic. He predicted that thefts will decline as security measures improve and electronic payments reduce opportunities for cash-based crimes.
Still, the rise of yami baito and the challenges posed by organised fraud syndicates suggest that Japan’s famed low-crime reputation may need to be re-examined in the years to come.


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Japan has seen a surge in desperate young people committing ‘yami baito’ – small-time crimes as part-time jobs


Japan has seen a surge in desperate young people committing ‘yami baito’ – small-time crimes as part-time jobs.


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