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Yakuza accused of threating ‘to use ice pick to poke eyes’ of Kabukicho scout

Dec 15 (tokyoreporter.com) - Tokyo Metropolitan Police have arrested five persons, including two members of a criminal syndicate, for allegedly assaulting a man in Shinjuku Ward earlier this year, reports the Asahi Shimbun.

On the night of June 5, Ryoji Hirai, a 46-year-old member of the Kohei-ikkai, another gangster, 27, and the other three suspects dragged the man, believed to be a street scout, from a vehicle in the Kabukicho red-light district.

After the suspects allegedly assaulted the man, one of them threatened, “Next time you come to Shinjuku, I’ll use an ice pick to poke your eyes.”

The suspects have been accused of violating the Act on Punishment of Physical Violence and inflicting bodily harm. They have declined to comment on the allegations, the Shinjuku Police Station said.

Ryoji Hirai (Twitter)

Street fight

The Kohei-ikkai is an affiliate gang of the Sumiyoshi-kai. Police had already taken other members of the Sumiyoshi-kai into custody over a brawl that took place in Kabukicho the night before.

According to previous reports, the fight, which involved around 100 persons, was between two groups enaged in a dispute over the scouting of women to work in the red-light district’s hostess bars and various sex businesses.

For several days around the time of the incidents, the group supported by the Sumiyoshi-kai searched for the scouts from the other group on the streets of Kabukicho. The tag “scout hunting” became popular on various social-networking services.

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