Photo/Illutration Kazuaki Sugita is transported from the Marunouchi Police Station in Tokyo's Chiyoda Ward on Nov. 13. (Jin Nishioka)

A YouTuber who makes “citizen’s arrest” videos was himself arrested on suspicion of defaming a teenager he wrongly accused of ticket scalping and compensated dating, Tokyo police said Nov. 13.

When he was arrested, Kazuaki Sugita, 40, a resident of Musashino city in western Tokyo, said of the allegations, “Yes, I understand,” according to police.

Sugita uploaded a video of the 18-year-old to his YouTube channel without her permission, the Metropolitan Police Department said.

He recorded her with his cellphone near the Imperial Theater in Tokyo’s Chiyoda Ward around Sept. 19.

Sugita was heard on the video asking her, “Hey lady, you are doing ‘papakatsu’ (compensated dating), aren’t you?”

He also told her, “Give me back 80,000 yen ($527).”

In the video, Sugita says the teenager was “reselling tickets.”

But police said she was not involved in any illegal activities and was simply meeting a friend there.

After the video was posted, the teenager consulted police. She said that when she was being recorded, five or six men surrounded her and accused her of engaging in illegal ticket resales and papakatsu activities.

She also noted that the video was not mosaicked, and her face was clearly visible.

Police suspect other people were involved in filming and posting the video.

Sugita runs an account on X (formerly Twitter) under the name “Rengoku Coroaki.”

The profile section reads, “Eliminate illegal resales of Johnny’s’ tickets!” and “Citizen’s arrest!”

The “Rengoku Coroaki” account on YouTube that showed the video of the teen was suspended on Nov. 8 for “repeated violations of our community guidelines,” according to the public relations department of Google, which operates the video-sharing site.

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A number of vloggers have tried to make names for themselves by acting like vigilantes and “apprehending” people they think are up to no good.

Their “shijin taiho kei” (citizen’s arrest-type) videos are often related to suspected groping at train stations, voyeurism and resales of tickets to performances.

They demand that their targets either apologize in front of the camera or be taken to a police box.

In some videos, the suspect is knocked to the ground and held down. Words, such as “arrest” and “neutralization,” appear in videos.

Actual arrests by police through such videos are quite rare, according to an investigative source.

One purpose of such videos is to gain attention on X and YouTube and generate advertising revenue.

A vlogger who posts “citizen’s arrest” videos on social media told The Asahi Shimbun in September, “I want to earn income by gaining views.”

Under the Criminal Procedure Law, private civilians can make citizen’s arrests only when they witness a crime in progress and the perpetrator is caught red-handed.

Legal experts have pointed out that the “citizen’s arrest” videos rarely ever show proof or evidence that the target committed a crime. Instead, the videos are more likely to show the video makers are guilty of invasion of privacy or assault, they said.

(This article was written by Tabito Fukutomi, Minami Endo and Shoko Mifune.)

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