I'm Not Stealing, You Ungrateful Bitch

Today we're in Japan. Below is an excerpt from Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan by Jake Adlestein, who was a reporter from 1993-2005 for the Yomiuri Shinbun, Japan's largest newspaper. From 2006-2007 he was the chief investigator for the U.S. State Department-sponsored study of human trafficking in Japan. Considered one of the foremost experts on organized crime in Japan, he works as a writer and consultant in Japan and the United States. He is also the public relations director for the Washington, D.C.-based Polaris Project Japan, which combats human trafficking and the exploitation of women and children in the sex trade.

In this book, Adelstein shares his experiences as a reporter covering the under-belly of Japan where extortion, murder, human trafficking, and corruption is common as ramen and sake. I read this book immediately after I returned from the Philippines - literally - while on a cruise ship in Mexico. My body was on vacation, but my mind wasn't.

In the narrative below, Jake meets Veronika, who was one of the lucky ones to escape her bondage in Tokyo. Unfortunately, some never make it out alive. I've also included a video (unrelated to the book) for those who need a visual reference of the facade of nightly terror.

Veronika was short and thin, and her blond hair had been pulled back into a sloppy ponytail. She did not look well. A thick layer of makeup obscured but didn't hide the dark circles under her eyes. She was wearing a white leather coat with a fur collar. Her left ear looked as if it had been crushed.

She was twenty-six, from a small village thirty miles from Warsaw. "I saw this ad on the Internet: 'Work in Japan as a hostess! Anyone can make a lot of money in a short time. Now hiring blond women." I answered the ad.

"I went to Warsaw and met this talent company representative named Mikel. he showed me pictures of a club--really extravagent place--and he said, 'You'll be here, dancing with Japanese men, chatting with them in English. For one hour you'll earn a hundred dollars U.S.' My daughter was six, so I asked my mother to take care of her. I left Warsaw and flew to Tokyo. I was given instructions to go to the ANA Hotel, and there I first Viktor. he was from the Netherlands, very handsome, and played the part of a perfect gentleman. I felt so relieved.

"Viktor drove me to where I would be staying. He said that I was probably tired from the long flight, so I could relax. It would be fine if I started work tomorrow. He took me to the apartment--it was on the fourth floor in the a building in Nashi-Azabu. I remember the address very well. At the apartment were a Columbian girl and a Canadian girl . Three people in one tiny room. I started to feel a little uneasy. Viktor pulled out a drawer and told me to put anything of value in it, including my passport, so that it wouldn't be stolen. I did as he said.

"I was horrified. I was absolutely repulsed, but there was nothing I could do. I left the bar, but I didn't know Tokyo at all, not even the way back to the apartment. Somehow, though, I remembered certain places, and after two or three hours, I made it back to the apartment. I thought I would grab my passport and plane ticket and get ready to go back home. When I got back, though, everything had been taken from the drawer. There was nothing I could do but wait.

"When I saw Viktor, his face was so...proud and triumphant. I was angry. 'What the hell are you doing? Give back my passport! Give me my return ticket! You're a thief, and if you don't give me them back, I'll go to the police.' He was totally unfazed, and he told me 'We're the ones who bought the ticket--the ticket was ours, not yours. I'm not stealing anything, you ungrateful bitch/ Go try to the police. You have no passport, right? They'll arrest you for being an illegal alien. The police here are worse than the hounds of Hell. Please, by all means, go ahead and try it. They'll deport you, but the money you owe us won't disappear. Quite the contrary. We'll get compensation from you. I know where your family lives, and my friends know, too.'

"The next day, around five in the afternoon, Viktor and Slick, a Japanese man, came to the apartment. They took us to the Den. It was totally different from the picture I was shown in Poland. Viktor very rudely told us we were to work there. I got mad, thinking what the hell is this? Then the two guys explained the job to us: We were going to be providing sex services. Give massages and jerk the men off. For oral sex, we would get four thousand yen ($40); Whether we had customers or no, they would collect seventy-five hundred yen ($75) from us each day. If we didn't pay, that amount would become a "loan" we would have to pay back. The plane ticket was the first thing they were charging us for; they said we already owed them three hundred thousand yen ($3,000). The apartment cost was ten thousand yen ($100) a day. 'Don't drag your feet about it,' they said. 'If you want more money, you can sleep with a customer; you can make twenty thousand yen ($200) for that. You have three months in this country, so if you work, you can pay back all your loans.'