(upbeat music)
- So do you remember Sugar Baby, Lili Chan?
She was almost in obsession
with this podcast for quite a
while because she had one
of the more interesting stories.
Not only was she
scamming men out of tons of
money, she was also
actually proactive enough.
She wrote a book on how to scam
men and sold that on the internet.
That actually ended up being
her downfall because the people
she sold the book to didn’t
really follow the steps of the way
they were supposed to and
they ended up saying like,
“Oh, well, I shouldn’t take responsibility
for the fact that I scam this guy.
I got this book from this other chick.
You should blame her.
” And that was her downfall.
She made a million bucks
easy off these three guys
that she scammed,
the three sort of big fish
that she caught the whales as
the mobile industry would call them.
She had a million bucks
and she spent most of that
on hosts, so she would go to
host clubs and spend all her money.
She was arrested and
has just been prosecuted.
So her sentences come down.
Prosecutors wanted 13 years
in prison and a 12 million yen fine.
No, she had 155 million yen from her scam.
So I was actually thinking like proactively
if she had kept the money,
saved the money, put the
money away, hid the
money or something like that.
When she gets out of prison,
if she paid the 12 million
yen fine, she’d still
actually have 100 million yen,
pretty good nest egg
to set yourself up with.
I’m not saying again, crime pays,
but it certainly doesn’t pay if
you don’t save any of the money.
I guess I get a sort of
sensible fiscal responsibility
for criminals is not really
what I should be talking about.
The judge said this was
an especially heinous crime
because she encouraged other
people to commit the same crime.
So she’s like, I’m scamming people,
I’ll teach you how to scam people, we’ll
scam more people, everyone will get scammed.
It’s great.
And he’s like, well,
that’s actually pretty evil.
If you think about it,
what you’re doing is
trying to teach people
how to break the law.
The final sentence was
an eight million yen fine
and nine years in prison.
So she’s 25, she’s gonna get
out of prison when she’s 34.
I don’t know what kind of job
prospects she’ll have at that time
because she certainly won’t
have a hundred million yen
sitting waiting for her because
she spent it all on hosts.
And I’m sure those hosts in nine years
are not gonna put a
great deal of effort into
supporting her back the
way she supported them.
I don’t have a lot of sympathy for Dita,
but it is sort of an
interesting case of
watching someone really
reap what they’ve sewn.
Their own inability to think forward has
really come to roost for her in this case.
So I’ll set a calendar date and
see if I can follow up in nine years
when she gets out of prison, we can
see how sugar baby Dita is actually doing.
Today’s stories are all
about crimes and courts
and crimes and courts
and crimes and courts.
I’m trying to, if you listen to last week
episodes, you know I have family in town.
So I am carving out this time to make sure
that I don’t lose any sort of momentum.
I missed a couple of weeks.
I don’t wanna lose a month.
I’m just forcing myself to do it.
So I just want you to know that
I’m here dedicating myself to you.
I’m actually neglecting my
family that’s in town right now
just so I can record
this episode super quick.
So the courts are coming correct in Japan.
Nine years in prison for scamming dudes,
that’s pretty solid sentence
and the 12 million yen fine.
I mean, yeah, that’s a lot of money.
The operator of a pirate
mango website has been fined 1.
7 billion yen that he has to
pay to three separate publishers.
So he had this website, it was the biggest
manga pirating website in the world.
It was accessed 500 and some
million times or something like that.
And so they had calculated how much money
the publishers would
have lost by not selling
books to the people
who were on that website.
Now we know that’s
not actually how it works,
but I guess if you’re going to
create a punishment for pirating,
this is a fairly sensible,
logistic to base it on.
This is the largest fine of its kind.
So this is a first in history,
which is why it became interesting.
The actual story
itself, guy sets up pirate
website, guy gets arrested,
guy has to pay big fine.
That kind of writes itself.
You don’t really need to say much about it.
The morality of pirating,
it’s here or there.
It’s up to you.
I mean, I’m not going
to judge people for it.
I live in Japan, so I can’t
get a lot of the Western media.
I want streaming services
are super expensive.
I understand why people pirate.
I really do.
Also, I understand paying for stuff.
Because if I had the money, I
would pay for everything generously.
But that’s not always the case.
The defendant told reporters that
he was unconvinced to buy the ruling.
So the judge is like you owe 1.
7 billion yen to these three
publishers because of ABC.
And he’s like, no, I don’t
know if that’s correct.
I don’t think you get to be
unconvinced by the ruling.
This was a more interesting aspect of this.
We had the mayor of Guinan,
who got booted out and had to quit.
And his apology was like, I
don’t– I did sexually harass a
whole bunch of ladies, but I
don’t really know what I’m being.
What I’m in trouble for.
I don’t really know
what I’m apologizing for.
Like, did I do anything wrong?
And I was like, yes, you
sexually harassed people.
He’s like, yeah, but did I?
And they’re like, yes, you did.
This guy’s like, yeah,
pirate, it’s some mange.
Has that hurt anybody?
And they’re like, yes, the
companies that make the mange.
And he’s like, yeah,
but should I pay a fine?
They’re like, yes, 1.7 billion yen.
He’s like, really is that how much?
It’s an interesting set
of mental gymnastics.
Because at this point,
he’s still basically saying
he’s not responsible
for the actions he took.
But he also said he has no
regrets setting up the website.
But I think after you pay the 1.7 billion
yen, you might have a regret or two.
75-year-old man is taking a walk in a park.
Very nice thing for a
75-year-old man to do.
There’s some kids
playing soccer in the park.
Very nice thing for the kids to do.
Park is a shared space.
Everyone should have a good time there.
I think old people should enjoy the park.
I think young people should enjoy the park.
I walk Dave in the park.
I enjoy my park near my house.
So parks are a great place.
The old man, the 75-year-old man, walks up
to the kids, he goes, is this your trash?
See, see some trash on the ground.
Is this your trash?
Because it’s going to say no.
Now, you know this is not
the end of the conversation.
And it’s because you know
old people, you know kids.
And you know how this interaction goes.
But at the same time, it’s
a surprise how far it goes.
There’s the logic that kids employ, which
I enjoy very much in this conversation.
So is this your trash?
No.
And then the 75-year-old
man says, even if it isn’t,
if you see trash on the ground, you should
pick it up and then throw it in the bin.
Now, I knew, without
even reading the next part,
what the kid said in response,
I knew because I bet it
was the thing I would have
said as a child to an old person
giving me instructions who
has no real authority of over me.
This is one of the interesting
aspects of authority.
People’s authority over you,
often is perceived, not real.
And when you realize that, you can
decide if you give the authority or not.
So these kids are saying the
75-year-old man’s telling them what to do.
And they’re like, well, I
don’t know who you are.
I have no respect for you.
You have an earned my respect.
So I’m going to respond in the
most reasonable way possible.
He says, you see trash on the ground.
You should pick it up and throw it away.
And they say it to him, why don’t
you just pick it up and throw it away?
Now, the reason this story is maybe it’s
an industry panel is because of the
next set of actions that has occurred.
And the gentleman
who’s 75 years old thinks,
well, what’s the most
reasonable response?
They’ve actually presented
me with a logic problem.
I have said, if people,
in this case specifically,
you children, see trash
on the ground, your moral
responsibilities to pick it
up and throw it in the trash.
You should throw it away.
I’ve told them to do that.
And they’ve said, why
don’t you lead by example?
Why don’t you yourself,
instead of bothering us,
pick up the trash and
throw it in the garbage?
And he’s now got a moral conundrum.
Does he bend to the will of the children
and demonstrate that he’s telling the truth,
that pick up the trash and throwing
it in the garbage and showing them?
That is not what he chose to do.
Does he berate them?
He does he tell them
like, respect your elders
and this kind of stuff,
that is all, again, conceptual.
It’s not real.
Like, the respect your elders thing,
I don’t give a lot of credence to that,
because for all I know, my
elders are all like evil people.
So you don’t want to respect them.
You’ve got to know who
they are, but you’ve got to
know who someone is
before you show them respect.
I think that’s fair.
So he does the only final thing when he’s
been caught in a logic trap by a child.
He hauls off and punches an
elementary school girl in the face.
And I’m laughing
because the girl’s not hurt.
I mean, I’m sure it hurt, but 75 year
old dude, he’s not swinging hard anymore.
One of the girl’s friends has a smartphone
because these are modern children.
Calls the police and says, this is dude,
just like cranked my friend in the face.
Please come arrest him.
He gets arrested and he says, well,
I didn’t punch any one of the face.
I did warn them.
Did you warn them though?
Because the sort of transcript of this
conversation has no warning involved in it.
It’s just, here is a moral
quandary I present you with.
And the children were
like, well, the moral
quandary is just as
much yours as it is ours.
Why don’t you demonstrate
how to alleviate the
moral issue through an
example of your own behavior?
And then it’s when he decided to just
punch a girl on the face, a little girl.
I don’t have a lot of sympathy for that.
It actually reminds me
of a bunch of stories
when I was like a teenager and
adults were really rude to me.
And I kept thinking like, I
actually now feel like I shouldn’t
respect adults, which is an
interesting place to live in.
And it’s probably the
basis for my disregard
of any authority whatsoever
from now until I die.
OK, there was a new scam out in Japan.
So the metropolitan Tokyo police are–
that’s the metropolitan
police department anyways,
the MPD, the metropolitan
police department.
This is the cops in Tokyo.
They’re actually trying to
warn people of this new scam
that is emerged in itself,
again, quite interesting.
You get a phone call.
And the phone call is
like, hey, I’m a police man.
And I’m telling you that
there’s a warrant for your arrest.
And you go, oh no, there’s
a warrant for my arrest.
I don’t want to be arrested.
Certainly not.
I don’t think I’ve done anything that
would justify a warrant for my arrest.
And so what they do is say,
well, let’s confirm that this is you.
And there is a warrant for your arrest.
A West.
There is a warrant for your arrest.
Go to this website.
Now, here’s the trick.
It’s not a real website.
And the person you’re
noting to, the person
you’re talking to, not
a real police officer.
So they sent you to this fake website.
And you have to put in a certain amount
of information to get into the website.
Because it’s going to
search for your details.
You have to give a certain
amount of details so it can search.
From those details, it
builds a fake arrest warrant.
Just like it generates one on the fly.
And then presents it to
you as a real arrest warrant.
Now, you can get rid
of this arrest warrant.
You can pay just a fine.
So you can just pay the fine.
And then the arrest warrant will go away.
That seems like a
pretty good deal if you
don’t want to have an
arrest on your record.
Then you will get a second
phone call, a phone call,
from a four mentioned,
not real police officer.
And he’ll say like, do
you want to pay the fine?
Or do you want to come in and get arrested?
But they do tell you that you can pay
money and you can have the warrant removed.
The most suspicious part, this
actually kind of makes sense.
Our cop calls you and says
there’s a warrant for your arrest.
And then you go to a website.
And then you go to that website.
And then you see an arrest warrant.
It pretty much confirms
a lot of the suspicions
that you have that this might
be actual factual information.
The interesting part to me
and the most suspicious part,
the part where it would fall apart, is
they send you the website via social media.
They don’t send it to
your like an email account.
And I’m guessing because
maybe that could be backtraced.
So they’d be like on Twitter or
Instagram or some other social
media website, they
will send you the link on
that so that then you
can access the website.
So there’s something suspicious there.
The cops using social
media to contact you and talk
to you on official business
seem suspect in itself.
So that to me would be the big red flag.
But it’s actually pretty small, if you
think the overall of what’s happened.
You’ve gotten a phone call.
You’re being sent to a website.
You put in your information.
That information confirms that
what the phone call said is true.
It all looks very official.
And then you get a follow up phone call
just saying you can pay certain
amount of money and this will go away.
I think it’d be pretty
easy to fall for that scam.
So that’s actually pretty
well put together scam.
They’re trying to warn people
which I think is pretty good.
Sometimes they ask for your bank details.
So if they get your bank details,
they’re actually going to try to
drain your bank account as well.
So if you live in Japan,
you get a phone call.
The best part about
being a foreign Japan is I
think I’ve actually
received scam phone calls.
And they try to talk to you,
but then I just keep talking
to them in English because
usually they’re speaking in Japanese.
It’s honestly just too hard for me.
So I’m like, I’m sorry.
I don’t understand.
I don’t say that in Japanese anymore.
I only speak in English on the phone.
And that really puts them off
because it’s like they can’t scam me.
If I can’t understand what they’re saying,
they can’t scam me if they
can’t convince me of anything.
And they can’t convince me of
anything because they cannot talk to me.
So this actually is
really a big advertisement
for English education in Japan because
you really want to scam more people.
You’ve got to learn multiple languages.
27 year old man was arrested
on suspicion of assault.
Now I do love in every article.
They never say he was arrested for assault.
They always say suspicion
because he hasn’t been convicted yet.
So the details of this were what makes
the suspicion of assault quite funny.
So that’s 7 p.m. a delivery company guy.
He just goes into the police station.
He walks around for a bit and he walks
up to a sergeant and the guy’s 41 year old
sergeant and the sergeant
looks quite pleasantly.
I’m going to pretend to
assume I have no idea.
Maybe he was very brusque.
When I went to the DMV in Japan,
they were very rude to me at first.
And then I was not a
problem and they actually
turned around and
were very nice to me.
So they needed that
like initial, they had an
initial bruscaness that I
managed to wear down,
which was quite good.
He said, “What can I do for you?
” So I see that phrase and I’m like,
“Oh, you know, do you need help?
Can I help you?
” The man, the delivery driver, he comes
in and goes, “I don’t know, I don’t know.
” And then he punches
the policeman in the face.
He was arrested on the
spot and then questioned.
The interesting aspect
of this, as I said, is
he’s been arrested
for suspicion of assault.
Despite the fact
he assaulted a police
officer and a police station,
it’s going to be on video.
Like, I’m sure it’s on video.
There is no suspicion there.
Unless of course the
police officer is like,
“This is a misunderstanding
and then the
person decides not to
prosecute or let him go,”
because then he’s not
being arrested for assault.
So I guess suspicion does make sense.
I’m now going full circle
and convince myself
that we should say suspicion until it’s
concluded, which is actually the case.
That’s what they’re doing in Japan.
But the news article is
I would say, like, here’s
a mountain of evidence
we suspect he did the thing.
While being questioned, he
said, “I’m sorry for doing that.”
And that in itself is not a big surprise
because I bet he is sorry for punching the
policeman in the face and
getting arrested right away.
Next week is Golden Week.
It’s going to be like 50/50
getting episode out, but I’m again.
I’m going to make
notes and then if I can
sit down and just carve
out half an hour, I’m
going to record at least one
or two podcasts next week.
So I will be trying.
I just want you to know again that I’m,
I don’t know, I’m trying to not give up.
Is that it?
I know if I took a month off of
you really hard to get started again.
So even this short episode is worth doing.
I think all this is just going to
get cut and I’ll just do the ends all.
Yeah, I’m just trying to get
my fucking life back together.
I realized what I do
is I feel like I have, we
had this super busy time at work
and I couldn’t do the things I wanted.
And then as soon as
that ended, my family
came and that takes
up all your personal time.
And I realized what I’m feeling
is I’ve lost control of my life.
I don’t get to do the
things I want to do because
I have to sacrifice
that for other things.
And it leaves you
in this weird position
where it’s like, I just want to
have control over my own life.
And I think this is what,
you know, why people
want to be rich is because it’s not
because like they’re greedy or anything.
It’s just they want to have
control over their time and their life.
And that is certainly where I am right now.