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Last month, police officers in Osaka City arrested a drug dealer in possession of marijuana, who had been waiting at a pre-arranged meeting point outside of a train station to make a sale to a customer who hadn’t yet shown up. As the dealer was arrested and taken into custody, a group of YouTubers who were nearby live-streamed the whole thing, then left the video for viewing on their YouTube channel.
As luck would have it, this same team of YouTubers, a group of four Japanese men in their 20s and 30s, was also within filming distance of a different marijuana dealer’s arrest in Osaka last August, which they also live-streamed and uploaded to their channel. Except, it turns out luck had nothing to do with it. It has since come to light that in both cases, the “customers” the dealers were waiting for were none other than the YouTubers themselves, who’d contacted them saying they wanted to score some pot, then anonymously tipped off the police that a drug deal was going down.
It’s unclear how much of the YouTubers’ motivation came from an overactive sense of justice and how much from the potential of earning some extra cash through their monetized YouTube channel. What is clear, though, is that they broke the law, and the Osaka Prefectural Police have now filed charges against all four of them.
It doesn’t take a master detective to see how the YouTubers’ plan got them in trouble with the law. Since they were the ones who made contact with the dealers, promised to give them money in exchange for drugs, and told them where and when to meet up for the exchange, the YouTubers themselves were the triggering factor in the whole illegal affair.
The specific charge being leveled against them “incitement to possess cannabis for commercial purposes,” and could theoretically complicate the legal cases against the drug dealers themselves. Even if it doesn’t, the police don’t take kindly to citizens setting up their own unsanctioned extrajudicial sting operations, and Osaka’s public prosecutors say they plan to throw the book at the four YouTubers.
Source: Livedoor News/Jiji via Jin, Yahoo! Japan News/Tospo Web, NHK
Read more stories from SoraNews24.
-- Speaking positively about marijuana online leads to arrest of Japanese man and woman
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-- Former police drug investigator arrested for drug possession, claims he didn’t know it was drugs
- External Link
- https://soranews24.com/2021/03/26/osaka-youtubers-stupid-plan-to-live-stream-marijuana-dealers-arrest-backfires-stupidly/
38 Comments
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wayan Ubud
dick heads for wasting the authorities time, what kind of mind set is this?
noriahojanen
Japan's law enforcement officials are polite and reasonable. What the Youtubers should fear most is a retribution from the publicly humiliated drug dealer who often has a link to yakuza crime syndicates. Yakuza people hate more to get fooled by ordinary people than to get arrested and charged (sometime it's considered an honor). The Youtubers may have to seek protection... better go to a jail voluntarily?
Stewart Gale
The lowest of the low, these four.
Disgusting grasses.
dbsaiya
Good for these guys, and in my opinion, YouTubers are a waste of time and oxygen.
Politik Kills
Ha ha!
Mickelicious
Weed sellers grassed up.
u_s__reamer
Unscrupulous folks like these have always formed the bedrock of Japanese authoritarianism. And let's not forget that entrapment is also a nasty but favored MO of law enforcement in "the world's greatest democracy", a tactic which in the near future might easily metastasize into the practice of "pre-crime", a "Minority Report" nightmare for folks who like freedom.
Baradzed
I didn’t get it. These YouTubers did the police job and should be rewarded.
borscht
What is a
?
Harry_Gatto
Where there are no yaks?
bo
Dopey you tubers, what they got fed up of doing unboxing vids.
Still can't wait to see their next vids of life in the slam
Cricky
It’s just a herb? Why is it such a fuss? The “dealer “ who obviously was at the top of his game waited outside a train station? Now that’s an arrest worth boasting about? Think the YouTube people would serve a better purpose wandering around banging sticks together warning of fires. If they can be head above the tv.
WA4TKG
Another “Only in Japan” Moment.
Stewart Gale
@Baradzed
That’s complete nonsense.
It’s not the police’s job to encourage and facilitate someone to break the law, nor is it their job to entrap someone.
Slickdrifter
Legalize it. Should be my choice to use or not. Alcohol more harmful. As far as the Youtubers? Really beyond dumb.
Zaphod
noriahojanen
How do you do know that? I feel there some commentators here who always talk about Yakuza without any reason.
Baradzed
@Steward Gale, sorry, but how pretending to be another random customer is facilitating in crime?
noriahojanen
@Harry
Hard to prove it. Though was exaggerating a bit, I'd never try to fool anyone suspected of connecting underround businesses. Reckless Youtubers might "vanish" suddenly from the street, unreported.
Some sting operations in passive form are employed in Japan. Police officers work undercover wearing plainclothes. They don't encourage, but just wait and see people break the rule. It's yet controversial.
Do the hustle
Why are they in trouble? They carried out two successful stings to get drugs off the streets. They should be contracted by the J-cops.
Stewart Gale
@Baradzed,
If you mean a police officer approaching someone in the street asking to buy drugs from them and then arresting them for selling them to them, I believe that is called entrapment and would lead to any charges being thrown out by a court of law.
Certainly this is the case in the UK.
With the dodgy legal system they’ve got running here though, who knows.
AustPaul
Should’ve just called Crimestoppers! (If Japan has that)
But I guess they did it for the hits on YouTube..
In_japan
Stupid youtubers, still they haven't used it, neither they "paid" for it. They just triggered the whole thing yet there was no deal occurred? There's no need to show that much anger unless it was your own undercover agent Mr prosecutors.
El Rata
Snitches get stitches
Toasted Heretic
Leave it to the cops, maybe.
I'm sure they'll get by. There's more of them, than there are irritable JT posters. That includes me, btw.
Styopka
In the immortal words of Forrest Gump’s mama, “Stoopid is as stoopid does...”
Jonathan Prin
They helped police. So what ?
Jonathan Prin
Youtube is the party taking advantage of that situation.
Goodlucktoyou
3 months.
Roten
Do the hustle Why are they in trouble? They carried out two successful stings to get drugs off the streets. They should be contracted by the J-cops.
They are in trouble because the Yakuza contacted their police buddies to arrest and charge the four guys. There is more cooperation between the police, prosecutors, and the yak than is evident here. These four guys embarrassed the police and the yak. This is another police/yak attempt to silence common citizens and remind them to mind their own business. Instead the police prefer to stake out mailboxes and arrest stupid guys who are dumping bentos.
TARA TAN KITAOKA
Hemp ???.
Charlie Sommers
Good think that this dangerous substance was taken off the streets! It's as dangerous as parsley and may have caused someone to experience a feeling of elation, caused some laughter and resulted in an increased appetite.
Strangerland
This is the correct move by Japan. As we can all see through Canada's descent into madness from legalization of marijuana, resulting in civil war, rape, murder and all out lawlessness, marijunana directly channels the devil, and empties the soul out of humans.
At least, I assume that's what must have happened. Has anyone checked?
Mark
KARMA at it's BEST, and I hope they sleep in the same cell with the dealer!! we will se how that goes!!
smithinjapan
These guys are getting a WHOLE lot more than they asked for... and there's revenge to think about, too. Given how strict the laws are against marijuana here, there is no doubt of major underworld connections to any regular sales.