YOKOHAMA--Authorities trying to crack down on swindlers here face a rather big problem in their investigations: The victims often cannot remember any details of what happened.

The scam involves shady drinking establishments plying men with alcohol until they are blackout drunk. In that state, they can be easily persuaded to use their credit cards for exorbitant payments or withdraw huge sums of cash from ATMs.

Promises of sex and spiked drinks are often involved.

Such incidents have been increasingly reported in and around the Fukutomicho district in Yokohama’s Naka Ward. The area is next to Isezakicho, the largest entertainment district in the city.

This year, by Nov. 23, 249 individuals had reported to Isezaki Police Station that they were swindled out of a total of 147.39 million yen ($1 million) after eating and drinking in Fukutomicho or neighboring districts.

The financial loss was nearly double the corresponding figure of 75 million yen reported by 148 individuals for all of 2022.

The average loss per person rose from about 500,000 yen last year to 600,000 yen this year. One individual reported losing more than 2 million yen.

The complaints have mainly been about credit card payments or cash withdrawals at a convenience store ATMs that they have no memory of.

Most of the victims had been drinking in neighboring Noge and Kannai before venturing to the Fukutomicho area.

Prefectural police officials are on high alert for the swindles ahead of the year-end party season, the first since COVID-19 was downgraded to a Class 5 infectious disease in May.

Streets in the Fukutomicho district are lined with bars, ethnic cuisine restaurants, and sex industry outlets.

Residents of the area said they have frequently seen inebriated customers being led by women to convenience stores late at night. The men are later seen passed out alone in parking lots or on sidewalks.

Masao Kojima, vice president of Fukutomicho’s neighborhood association, said that he and other residents call police whenever they see such scams going down.

“The women are gone by the time police arrive,” Kojima, 75, said.

Sources said women in jeans solicit potential customers on the streets late at night, telling them: “We have Russians, Filipinas and others. Which ones do you like?”

These touters are known locally as “paira,” a likely derivative from the English word “pilot.”

The paira guide the men to bars and restaurants operated by acquaintances. The paira’s share works out to about half of the customers’ payments, the investigators added.

Prefectural police officials earlier this year arrested 17 individuals, most of them paira, on suspicion of illegal touting or related allegations.

Paira have become more active since COVID-related restrictions on people’s movements were eased. And they are apparently increasingly become involved in finding potential victims to rip off.

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Kanagawa prefectural police searched a Chinese pub, which one alleged victim had been taken to. Alcoholic drinks with strengths of 80 percent to more than 90 percent alcohol, double the usual potency, were found there.

Workers at the pub likely talked the drunken customer into consuming such strong drinks or else concealed the strength of the beverage.

But prosecuting such cases can be difficult because the victims are often so drunk they cannot remember things that could help in the investigation.

The issue was taken up at a Kanagawa prefectural assembly session on Nov. 29.

“Residents and visitors to our prefecture are being ripped off and suffering financial losses,” one assembly member said.

Toshikatsu Naoe, head of the prefectural police headquarters, explained at the session what his department was doing to combat the scourge.

“We have been applying diverse laws and regulations, including theft and violation of the Law on Control and Improvement of Amusement Business,” Naoe said. “We have also been making late-night patrols and implementing crackdowns.”

Officers at the Isezaki Police Station arrested two Chinese women--a 27-year-old self-described company worker and a 33-year-old restaurant employee--on suspicion of theft on Dec. 5 and 6.

They were accused of taking a man in his 50s, who was so drunk he couldn’t make a normal judgment, to a convenience store ATM on the night of May 12. His cash card was used to withdraw a total of 2 million yen in seven installments, and the women took all the money, investigators said.

The man, who had been drinking alone in Fukutomicho, had no memory of what happened. He consulted the police station after noticing the cash withdrawals from his bank account.

Many of the victims are middle-aged men on business trips to Kanagawa Prefecture.

In July, prefectural police started asking around 20 business hotels in the neighborhood to warn their guests about such scams. But the swindles have continued, the officials added.

Residents are joining prefectural police on their street patrols.

“Most of the restaurants and bars in this district are working honestly,” said a 61-year-old man who has been running a restaurant in Fukutomicho for more than 10 years. “It is so vexing that Fukutomicho has been branded with this image of a dangerous neighborhood because of a handful of malicious establishments.”

Lawyer Motomu Tanemura, vice chairman of the Kanagawa Bar Association’s committee against racketeering through intercession in civil disputes, has some advice for people who may have been scammed.

“It is legally difficult to dispute your payment obligation once your credit card has been processed,” he said. “If you happen to be billed an expensive charge, don’t pay it on the spot but turn to police or a lawyer instead.”

One senior investigator said, “The best way to protect yourself from becoming a victim is to avoid being inebriated on a street in an entertainment district and to never follow a touter.”