'When Your Turn on the List Comes, You Can Go Home' — Police Break Up Scheme Targeting First-Generation Drifters

According to the police Public Safety Division, the two men, ages 43 and 51 and both unnamed, operated out of a rented office in the East district and are suspected of having created a self-styled "Drifter Observation Cooperation List" since late 2025, telling elderly first-generation Drifters that registering and paying a monthly "observation cooperation fee" would secure them priority standing for an eventual return to their home world line. Registration fees ranged from several hundred thousand yen to as much as roughly 3 million yen in some cases, with an estimated dozen-plus victims in Fukagawa and Kameido losing roughly 21 million yen in total. Police referred the two men to prosecutors on suspicion of fraud on the 28th; whether to indict is now a matter for prosecutors.

■ A Scheme Built on Turning "One-Way" Against Itself

As previously reported, a Yuragi crossing carries information, drift objects, and Drifters only one way; there is no institutional or physical means, now or ever, for this side to send anything back, nor for a Drifter to return to their original world line. A TDA spokesperson reiterated to this paper on the 28th, "There is no fact whatsoever that a return is possible. This has not changed before this case and will not change after it." Investigators say the two men had also claimed their list was "coordinated with the TDA's internal registry," but no such coordination has been confirmed; the TDA states it "has no connection whatsoever to the list or the scheme."

■ A Victim: "I Half Knew. But the Word 'Turn' Got to Me"

One victim, an 82-year-old first-generation Drifter woman living in Fukagawa who spoke anonymously, told this paper, "I half knew it sounded too good. Even so, the way they put it — 'once your turn comes' — got to me. Being told there's zero chance felt worse than waiting for a turn." She says she paid roughly 800,000 yen. "More than the money, honestly, it's being preyed on in that particular feeling that gets to me."

■ A Ferry Witness Voices Concern Too

Hajime Ushioda, 73, a first-generation Drifter who has served nearly forty years as a witness to the shore-crossing rite, previously reported, said, "Plenty of us first-generation Drifters live knowing we can't go back, while pretending not to know it. Approaching someone with a story that breaks that pretense is about the worst thing you can do." He added, "In this line of work I know plenty of people my own age. If I'd been approached, I might have half believed it myself."

■ Consumer Affairs Panel Adds It to Its Scope

The secretariat of the Consumer Affairs Agency's expert panel on index-linked pricing and related matters (chaired by Ritsuko Fukazawa, previously reported) commented, "The target and the method differ from our usual topics, but as a case of consumer harm aimed at elderly Drifter-descended residents, it's continuous with issues we already examine. We're considering adding this case to the panel's scope as well." Police say they will continue checking whether similar list-based schemes have spread to other districts.

■ A List With Real Numbers On It

Investigators say the "registration numbers" printed on the list were genuinely issued, with a mechanism that dutifully made the number appear to move up whenever a victim checked on it. Kaname Tsuyuki, 56, chairman of the Pre-Appraisal Association (previously reported, in the unrelated context of drift-object appraisal), said, "In the appraisal world too, 'explaining why you have to wait' can become its own kind of business. When a turn is shown to you in a visible way, people want to believe in it. This case isn't someone else's problem for an industry like ours that calls itself a waiting room before appraisal."

■ What Comes Next

Following the referral, prosecutors will now decide whether to indict. Police are asking that anyone approached with a solicitation citing a "list" or "priority standing" consult authorities before paying anything. With the one-way nature of the phenomenon unlikely to ever change, both police and the TDA say they will keep warning the public that schemes of this kind may resurface in other forms.