What would the proposed tokuryu measures change?

The header image is an AI-generated concept image, not a photograph of an incident, consultation service or investigative equipment.

This article provides general information and is not legal advice. For legal decisions in individual cases, consult a qualified professional such as a lawyer.

What Is Happening

Distinguish anonymity of the core from changing participants and the scope of apprehension figures.

An anonymous core and replaceable participants

Tokuryu abbreviates the Japanese term for anonymous and fluid criminal groups. The National Police Agency white paper describes a core that draws criminal proceeds while concealing its identity, and participants recruited through social media and job sites who can be replaced after arrests.

Anonymity and fluidity describe different parts of the arrangement. A participant’s inability to identify the core and the replacement of participants should not be compressed into a claim that no organization exists. In describing quasi-organized-crime groups, the white paper discusses loose ties based on friendships, acquaintances and senior-junior relationships, and groups suspected of close ties with organized crime syndicates. Assuming everyone first meets online can obscure recruitment through familiar relationships.

The Metropolitan Police Department information site likewise includes introductions by friends and senior acquaintances, alongside social media recruitment. The headquarters’ tokuryu awareness leaflet（外部サイト、新しいタブで開きます） also presents an example of recruitment by a senior acquaintance through social media. Familiar introductions do not establish safety; this warning belongs alongside caution about unknown accounts.

The core receiving proceeds and issuing instructions

What is concealed

Core identity

Relationships to examine

Orders/funds

An investigative question

Who benefits?

Recruited participants

What changes

Participants

Recruitment routes

SNS/friends

A prevention question

Seek help

Organized from the police white paper and explanations by the Metropolitan Police Department and the National Police Agency. This is not a universal organization chart or a determination of individual criminal responsibility.

Apprehension figures do not reveal the entire population

For 2025, the white paper reports 6,679 persons apprehended[1] for principal income-generating offences believed to involve these groups. The categories are fraud, robbery, theft, drug offences and violations of the entertainment business regulation law, which regulates entertainment businesses and related activities（外部サイト、新しいタブで開きます）. This figure does not count every group member or every crime actually committed.

When those apprehended for the principal offences are classified by their role at the time of the offence, approximately one tenth[2] are classified as principal offenders or those issuing instructions, with the other category being participants carrying out offences. The figure points to the task of connecting apprehension of participants with identification of the core. It cannot establish that nine tenths of those issuing instructions remain unapprehended. The composition of known persons differs from a proportion covering an entire population, including those not identified.

Figures concerning age or recruitment through social media also require attention to their scope. Characteristics of apprehended persons cannot establish why young people generally become involved, or a causal claim that smartphones create crime. Prevention should consider recruitment content and situations requiring help, rather than select suspicious people by age alone.

Apprehension statistics and consultation information also serve different purposes. The former describe offences identified; the latter connect people facing anxiety or threats with a response. Treating consultation numbers as counts of offenders, or assuming that areas with fewer apprehensions have no need for consultation, changes the meaning of the records. Support services should also distinguish what information counts.

Background & Context

Read statutory requirements and an arrest example, distinguishing protection from criminal responsibility.

Legal requirements and evidence of actual relationships

Anonymity does not remove existing law. Article 2 of Japan’s organized crime punishment law defines a group through a continuing association of multiple persons with a common purpose, whose acts realizing its purpose or intent are carried out, in whole or in part, repeatedly by an organization, and defines organization through matters including command relationships and predetermined roles. The provision does not make the presence of a fixed membership list the sole test for applicability.

Article 3 includes fraud under Penal Code Article 246 among the organized offences it addresses. However, statutory requirements (including conduct as a group activity carried out through an organization) and the facts of each case require examination. Applying the tokuryu label does not automatically make the law applicable to every incident.

The white paper describes a joint investigation concerning a Cambodian base in which arrests for organized fraud under that law had been made by November 2025. This is an example of enforcement using the law. An account of arrests is not a report of final convictions. The existence of legislation, its requirements, investigative progress and court outcomes should be read separately.

Concealment raises questions about what evidence can establish instructions, roles and flows of funds. Enforcement concerning participants must connect with identification of those directing them and receiving benefits. Arrest counts alone cannot show how far those relationships have been established or whether harm has been prevented.

Examining roles also requires attention to conduct and knowledge. Penal Code Article 38 provides that an act without criminal intent is not punished, subject to statutory exceptions; Article 60 treats two or more people who jointly carry out a crime as principals. Not knowing another person’s real name alone establishes neither absence of intent nor participation as an accomplice, so individual circumstances and evidence must be examined beyond a diagram listing transfer or collection roles.

Protection from threats and criminal responsibility

The Metropolitan Police Department’s information site presents examples of applicants providing identification and family information, then being threatened with harm. Being deceived or threatened and taking part in acts that harm another person’s property or body can overlap within one person’s experience.

The National Police Agency urges applicants and people unable to leave to seek help immediately, and states that it will protect people seeking help and their families. It directs them to the police consultation number #9110 or a nearby police station. This protection message should not become a legal guarantee that threatened participants will never face criminal responsibility. An information article cannot determine liability in an individual case.

Schools and community supporters could explain that help remains available after an application, alongside warnings about criminal recruitment. Requiring a person to undergo questioning before referral might leave them anxious about speaking. This is a support question proposed here, not a research finding establishing the causes of reluctance or the effects of a particular improvement.

The agency’s guidance also directs people facing difficulties with work or daily living to local consultation services. Warnings about criminal recruitment can be presented alongside routes to help with housing, household finances and employment. This does not establish that a particular benefit prevents involvement, or that everyone qualifies for identical support.

Questions at the point of an introduction differ from those after threats begin. The former may involve uncertainty about duties and recruitment content; the latter may involve fear of harm to the person or their family. Supporters can consider identifying the situation and directing the person to official consultation. Contacting the recruiter again to test their claims need not be a prerequisite for seeking help.

Reading the Structure

Remote analysis is proposed new authority; connect limits, deletion, notification and oversight.

What did the September proposal recommend?

On September 24, 2026, a National Police Agency expert committee finalized a proposal concerning technical measures. It recommends introducing remote analysis of device information to identify people facing imminent harm and criminal plans, so that harm can be prevented where groups use highly confidential communications.

The proposal envisages administrative investigation authority for preventing imminent harm from serious crime. The account here concerns the September 2026 proposal; that document itself does not report enactment or the start of operations. This article has not verified subsequent parliamentary proceedings, enactment or commencement. Proposed new preventive authority should not be presented as identical to investigative procedures under the Code of Criminal Procedure.

The committee recommends conditions concerning the risk of serious harm, urgency and inability to obtain information promptly through other means. It also proposes limiting target devices and information to be obtained, with prior judicial scrutiny. Identifying encrypted communications as a difficulty does not mean examining everyone who uses encryption.

Questions concerning prevention

Establishing necessity

Imminent harm

Identifying the target

Device/data

Purpose after acquisition

Prevent harm

Procedures limiting authority

Before acquisition

Court review

During acquisition

Delete unauthorized data

After acquisition

Notify/review

Organized from the September 2026 proposal. This does not depict enacted or operational authority, or demonstrated prevention effects. The proposal includes exceptions to notification.

Existing responses should be read alongside the proposal. The white paper reports that an information analysis office at the National Police Agency and a dedicated team of investigators from across Japan within the Metropolitan Police Department’s countermeasures headquarters for anonymous and fluid criminal groups were established in October 2025. Arrangements for consolidating information across regions and proposed authority to obtain new information from devices address different tasks. The question concerns connecting information sharing and analysis, rather than assuming a new technology alone establishes the core.

Authorized information and records that permit oversight

The proposal recommends separating officers responsible for preventing harm from those conducting analysis, with analysis performed by designated personnel possessing specialist knowledge and ability. It also recommends deleting all information whose acquisition is not authorized if such information is handled. Alongside speed, implementation must permit examination of who handled what scope of information.

Exceptions to subsequent notification of device users are proposed for circumstances including interference with prevention. The document cannot be read as promising immediate notification to everyone. Individual review and correction by public safety commissions, which manage the police（外部サイト、新しいタブで開きます）, are also proposed, but publication of the proposal does not demonstrate that oversight has worked in practice.

The document’s section on other opinions discusses supervisory expertise, assistance from outside specialists and disclosure for transparency. These points should be treated as matters to resolve in institutional design, rather than combined into finalized procedures. The proposal also does not exclude use of relevant information in criminal proceedings after the necessary procedures.

This article proposes linking information obtained for prevention with records needed to examine the exercise of authority. Who examines the preventive judgment, authorized scope, confirmation of deletion and handling of notification? This differs from publishing details of offences or personal information broadly. The suggested approach distinguishes material supervisors need to assess from information that can be explained publicly.

Counts of analysis operations would also be insufficient for evaluation. Questions remain about prevention outcomes, compliance with authorized scope, and the treatment of corrections and notification exceptions. These are proposed evaluation questions, not assertions that the suggested method’s effectiveness or safety has been demonstrated.

The source of acquired information also needs to be examinable afterward. The proposal’s other opinions include ensuring that information can subsequently be confirmed as coming from the target device. Without specifying records and materials that permit comparison, reporting technical acquisition success alone makes it difficult to follow the basis for decisions. This can be considered separately from public disclosure of specific analytical methods.

Consultation routes and analytical authority should not be combined into one entry point without care. This article does not propose automatically collecting detailed device information as a condition of seeking help. Information handled in support consultation differs in purpose and procedure from information obtained under legal authorization. Preserving explanations that let people understand the consultation they are using is a starting point for considering community practice.

Remaining Questions

Ask how identification of the core, access to help and effective prevention and oversight can be assessed.

How can investigation directed toward the core be evaluated? Apprehending participants is one part of stopping harm, but that figure alone does not establish where benefits flowed. Evaluation should ask how far relationships between instructions and funds have been established and connected with preventing further harm. Even where investigative information cannot be disclosed, it is necessary to consider what can be explained as an outcome and what remains unknown.

At what stage can someone who has applied seek help? Alongside recognizing dangerous recruitment, people need a route to assistance after threats begin. How can schools, communities and services addressing work and daily living explain police consultation and connect people with responses protecting them and their families? Explanations should avoid confusing protection with exemption from criminal responsibility while also avoiding discouragement from seeking help.

How can the need for new authority and oversight of its use be examined together? Alongside prior judicial scrutiny, questions concern deletion of information outside the authorized scope, notification exceptions and sustained specialist oversight. Can arrangements identify and correct mistakes while protecting personal information and investigative confidentiality? The remaining question is whether expected preventive effects can be followed by examination of both necessity and proper exercise of authority. Can handover records distinguish a request for correction from a correction that has been verified? Can the reasons for withholding notification be followed through subsequent reviews, beyond the initial decision? When oversight personnel change, can their successors use the same materials to identify what has been checked and what remains unverified?

For further reading on assessing policy outcomes, see the introduction to evidence-based policymaking（このサイトの記事）.

References

White Paper on Police 2026, Topic I: Measures concerning anonymous and fluid criminal groups (title translated by the author) — National Police Agency (2026). National Police Agency

Anonymous and fluid criminal groups: Tokuryu awareness leaflet (title translated by the author) — Metropolitan Police Department (2026). Metropolitan Police Department

Act on Punishment of Organized Crimes and Regulation of Criminal Proceeds (1999). e-Gov Laws

Penal Code (1907). e-Gov Laws

Proposal on technical measures to prevent harm by anonymous and fluid criminal groups (title translated by the author) — National Police Agency expert committee (2026). National Police Agency expert committee

On the dangers of so-called yami baito (dark part-time jobs) (title translated by the author) — National Police Agency. National Police Agency

Section 5: Maintaining a sound living environment (title translated by the author) — National Police Agency (2015). National Police Agency

Police organization (title translated by the author) — National Police Agency. National Police Agency

Reference Books

Related reading confirmed through the publisher’s bibliography（外部サイト、新しいタブで開きます） and the public product bibliography and contents. The link below is to the Japanese edition, with its original title retained in the bibliography. An English translation of the title is Anonymous Criminals: Illicit Part-time Work, Tokuryu Groups and Cyberattacks (Chuko Shinsho La Clef 836); this translation is supplied by this article. This article does not quote the book or claims from individual chapters.

Statistics cited in this article

1. 1National Police Agency 2026 Police White Paper: persons apprehended for principal income-generating offences（2025） Open source
2. 2National Police Agency 2026 Police White Paper: roles at the time of principal income-generating offences among persons apprehended（2025） Open source

Related Content

October 3, 2026

Japan DBS needs more than a criminal-record check

Incumbents have different deadlines: three years from commencement in mandatory settings, one year from certification in certified settings. Advance notice and correction protect the reliability of a conviction check. Check record coverage alongside everyday reporting and protective measures.

EducationLegal & RegulatoryGovernance

Research

July 2, 2026

Institutional Design Theory and the Commons

Tracing the lineage of institutional design theory through Ostrom, North, and Putnam, and examining the development of commons theory. Exploring points of connection to social vision design.

Institutional DesignCommonsGovernance

April 28, 2026

Why the General Incorporated Association Suits Social Entrepreneurship — Criteria for Choosing a Legal Entity

Why is the general incorporated association well-suited for entrepreneurship aimed at solving social issues? This guide examines its structural advantages over NPO corporations and stock companies, and explores the potential of a two-tier structure with a for-profit entity.

Nonprofit SetupCorporate FormationGuide

Series: Feature: Nonprofit Formation Guide

April 25, 2026

What Is a Non-Profit General Incorporated Association? — Differences from NPO Corporations and How to Choose

A comprehensive comparison of Japan's non-profit general incorporated associations and NPO corporations across five axes: formation requirements, governance, taxation, activity restrictions, and Google for Nonprofits eligibility. Includes a decision flowchart and ISVD's rationale for its own choice.

Nonprofit SetupCorporate FormationNPO

Series: Feature: Nonprofit Formation Guide

Get new columns by email

1-2 social structure analysis columns per week. Free to subscribe.

Website

Subscribe→

Join ISVD's activities?

Sign up to receive the latest research and activity reports. Feel free to reach out about collaboration or project participation.

Join→Contact Us→

Support ISVD’s research and activities

Support ISVD’s research and publications with JPY5,000 per year. There is no automatic renewal.

Become a supporting member→About supporting membership→