Fleecing drunk guys not fraud?

Asahi has the story:

Police said they received about 80 complaints last year by men who were fleeced in the Ueno district. On each occasion, the drunken customer had agreed to withdraw between 50,000 yen and 200,000 yen from an ATM and give it to the hostess, who then vanished.

The Metropolitan Police Department is at a loss over how to handle the problem as no laws were broken since the victimized men handed over cash of their own accord.

“It is not fraud, even if the men were absolutely dead drunk, since they operated the ATMs on their own,” a police official said. “Theft does not apply because the hostesses did not steal the men’s bank cards. There was no extortion because no threats were made.”

Police estimate the total handed over to hostesses last year reached many millions of yen.

And this isn’t fraud somehow?

5 thoughts on “Fleecing drunk guys not fraud?”

  1. I guess it depends on what she said to them. If she promised something they didn’t get, or something illegal, I suppose that would be fraud. Talking people into doing dumb things, though… if it were illegal, we wouldn’t have reality television.

  2. Is it fraud if they sit down in the bar with no prices on the menu and unwittingly drink those 30,000-yen glasses of Suntory Old?

    Maybe it only counts when you do it over the phone, like ore ore callers.

  3. It’s only fraud if they’re lied to. If there are no prices and they drink 30,000 yen glasses of water with a hint of Suntory Old in them, that’s not fraud. I’d be surprised if many customers were unwitting, too.
    As for handing the hostesses cash, why would that be fraud? Stupid. The guys regret it. But fraud only if the hostesses are, as said above, making false promises for legal services.

  4. Is it fraud if they sit down in the bar with no prices on the menu and unwittingly drink those 30,000-yen glasses of Suntory Old?

    It’s not fraud, but it doesn’t create a binding contract, either. They can haggle the price as far down as the bouncers will permit…

  5. Adamu: a basic tenant of Japanese criminal law (罪刑法定主義) is that there be no punishment without a law, and relevant application of the alleged criminal action to that law.

    The crime of fraud reads as such:

    (詐欺) 第246条 人を欺いて財物を交付させた者は、10年以下の懲役に処する。
    “A person who obtains property through deception of another person shall be imprisoned for up to ten years.”

    Property (cash) was obtained; but was it obtained by deception? That’s the issue. Why did they hand over the cash?

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