{"id":20632,"date":"2026-05-11T19:52:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-11T19:52:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/20632\/"},"modified":"2026-05-11T19:52:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-11T19:52:11","slug":"illegal-slot-parlor-in-sumida-disguised-as-cat-cafe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/20632\/","title":{"rendered":"Illegal slot parlor in Sumida disguised as cat cafe"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>TOKYO (TR) \u2013 Tokyo Metropolitan Police have arrested three individuals for allegedly operating a highly lucrative underground gambling den disguised as a \u201ccat cafe\u201d and mahjong parlor in Sumida Ward, reports TV Asahi (May 11).<\/p>\n<p>Toyotaka Yasue, the 51-year-old manager of the illegal <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tokyoreporter.com\/japan-news\/trio-nabbed-over-operation-of-illegal-slot-parlor-in-ikebukuro\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">pachi suro<\/a> (pachinko slot) parlor named Mint, and two accomplices are accused of facilitating illegal gambling on November 9.<\/p>\n<p>The covert operation was run out of a single room in a multi-tenant building near JR Kinshicho Station, where police found 48 pachi suro machines set up for customers.<\/p>\n<p>According to police, Yasue and his associates displayed decoy signboards advertising it as a mahjong parlor and a cat cafe in a bid to evade law enforcement raids.<\/p>\n<p>The underground parlor operated on a strict referral-only basis. Police estimate that since opening in 2015, the clandestine business has raked in approximately 800 million yen in revenue over the past decade.<\/p>\n<p>Upon arrest, all three suspects chose to remain silent during police questioning.<\/p>\n<p>Investigators are currently analyzing documents and materials seized during a raid on the property. Authorities are also probing the case with a view toward potential involvement by organized crime syndicates (yakuza) funneling the illicit profits.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TOKYO (TR) \u2013 Tokyo Metropolitan Police have arrested three individuals for allegedly operating a highly lucrative underground gambling&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20633,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[8,52],"class_list":{"0":"post-20632","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tokyo","8":"tag-japan","9":"tag-tokyo"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20632","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20632"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20632\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20633"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}