TOKYO —
Police in Japan have arrested a 70-year-old man over claims he arranged sexual encounters among senior citizens through newspaper adverts soliciting “tea-drinking companions”, police and press reports said.
Kiyohide Kuroda had allegedly been posting classified ads in a Tokyo newspaper for around a decade before he was taken into custody last week.
Press reports said Kuroda had helped arrange sex among about 1,000 men and 350 women, mostly in their mid-60s, earning some 30 million yen as commission in breach of Japanese prostitution laws.
His small ads for his “San Ai” (Three Loves) club offered to arrange meetings for “tea-drinking companions aged between 40 and mature ages,” the reports said.
The oldest male customer was 88 and the oldest woman was 82.
A spokesman for Tokyo Metropolitan Police said Kuroda’s arrest on Oct 4 came after he separately introduced two women to two men who had asked him over the past month to find sexual partners.
“I recruited tea-drinking companions as I did not wish to give the impression that mine was sex business,” Kuroda reportedly told investigators. “I thought people seeking prostitution understood what it meant.”