‘Strange things started happening’: Aussie couple’s horror after gang’s request

An Australian couple has opened up about their haunting experience in the nation’s new favourite tourism hotspot.

An Australian couple has opened up about their haunting experience in the nation’s new favourite tourism hotspot.

It had all the ingredients of a dream working holiday.

Flights. Accommodation in a country they’d always wanted to see. Did I mention getting paid for their art?

But things soon took a nightmare turn for Aussie muso duo Jodie and Jonathan, who did not provide their surname due to safety concerns, during their three-month live performance contract in a Japanese nightclub.

Because little did the Gold Coast couple know, they’d been booked by the yakuza – the Japanese mafia. And when they tried to escape, the arrangement started to resemble a scene from Donnie Brasco, the 1997 thriller where Johnny Depp is hunted by mobsters.

A blacked-out van stalked the streets wherever they went. Strange men started filming them in public. Someone even broke into their flat and hacked their computer.

Jodie performing in Japan.

Without support networks or funds for return flights, only narrowly did the couple make it home. Now, they want to warn people against accepting illegal international work.

It all started in 2003, when the couple got a call from a music agent with a last-minute offer for work in Osaka.

“We’d always wanted to see Japan and our last work had just wrapped up, so we thought it sounded perfect,” said Jodie.

The agent advised that Australians could legally work in Japan for three months on a holiday visa, so they only needed to tell customs they were tourists. Everything else would be looked after.

Short-term work visas are difficult to clear in Japan, a situation some employers circumnavigate by offering backdoor work on a tourist visa. This leaves workers vulnerable to illegal foreign labour charges along with exploitation.

Looking back now, Jodie suspects that other booked artists may have pulled out at the eleventh hour after discovering the booker’s identity. But at the time, the Aussie pair saw no need for suspicion.

So they packed their bags and set off for the Land of the Rising Sun. Despite touching down carrying guitar cases, they got through customs without questions to be welcomed by their driver.

Jonathan performing live in Osaka.

Though the venue they’d been contracted to play in was in downtown Osaka, the pair were driven to an otherwise unoccupied apartment in a remote suburban neighbourhood. Again, they thought nothing of it.

“We were the only ones staying there, out in the burbs,” said Jodie.

“This meant we could experience Japan in a way few tourists do. But it’s scary to think of where we would have gone if something happened.”

The next night, they lapsed into their new working life. They passed their days drinking in Osaka’s refreshing culture.

Jodie soaking up the surrounds.

Five nights a week, the couple played three 15-minute sets in the Budweiser Carnival Club. As it happened, these sets were big in Japan.

Footage of the performances paints a lively picture – crowds of rowdy salarymen giving the duo a wild ovation as female dancers bounce along onstage.

“They were the world’s best audience,” recalled Jodie.

“I’m an introvert by nature and they brought out the best in us on stage.”

But backstage, there lurked a darker presence: their new yakuza bosses. Jodie recalled the owners cast an imposing cloud over the venue.

“They wore these flashy suits and had lots of tatts and jewellery and a dark vibe,” she said. “You could tell the staff were scared of them.”

For centuries, the yakuza ruled Japan’s entertainment industry with an iron fist. Unlike other criminal organisations, their clans didn’t need to cloak themselves in secrecy, because Japanese society clung to a romantic view of them as outlaws.

An Australian couple has opened up about their haunting experience in the nation’s new favourite tourism hotspot.

The yakuza ran a public-facing website and office, where they held regular press conferences. This empowered the gangs to operate Japan’s clubs, cabarets and bars ruthlessly, strengthening their grip in the trafficking of humans and drugs.

In their first week, Jodie and Jonathan met another foreign entertainer who rang the first alarm bells: the couple were working without the knowledge of authorities, in a very visible way.

“We were so naive; we didn’t even realise we needed entertainment visas,” said Jonathan.

From that night, the trip took on a dark new tinge.

“That’s when the weirdness started,” he said.

Jodie and Jonathan emailed their family that night, warning they could be in trouble. Little did they know, the yakuza were tracking their emails. Later that week, Jonathan noticed something unusual in his brand-new laptop.

“I found this very crude sticky tape holding cables together,” he said.

The tampered wiring in Jonathan’s computer.

Jonathan contacted the laptop maker’s support team, who delivered the news no one wants to hear.

“They suspected it had been tampered with. They had no idea why a new model [would] have that kind of tape inside, which was usually used for setting up a second Wi-Fi device,” he explained.

These suspicions were later confirmed when Jonathan spoke to another entertainment agent who knew about the dealings of the yakuza.

Next, strange things started happening in their flat – they arrived home to find the aircon left on when they were sure it hadn’t been. Doors they had locked were mysteriously open. Then came the noises in the vacant flat next door. That’s when they realised that the gangsters owned the whole building.

“You could sense someone was there,” said Jodie.

“They were keeping an eye on us.”

Jodie outside her Osaka apartment.

The couple began to be haunted by the sight of an ominous van on the street everywhere they went, with the tinted windows of an armoured vehicle. Dangerous-looking men with baggy suits and missing teeth started coming to their shows.

As they learned, the danger went beyond appearances. One night, a man with a hulking frame started following them on the street and filming them with a camcorder between his legs.

“He was sweating profusely and very strange looking,” said Jonathan.

When the couple’s bikes were later stolen, they visited a police station for help – only to be met by a mugshot on the wall of the same man who had been filming them days earlier.

“He was a wanted felon on the wall,” he said.

At that time, yakuza were known for greasing the wheels of justice, paying police to turn a blind eye to their crimes and even working together on other activities. When it came to them, the law often didn’t apply. This, coupled with the pair’s compromising visa situation, drove them to leave without reporting the stalking or theft.

“We weren’t sure who you could trust,” said Jonathan.

Instead, the couple turned their attention to an exit strategy. They contacted a friend who worked at Qantas to change their pre-booked flights internally on the system.

The next day, they escaped home. It was a long time before they could stop looking over their shoulder out of fear they might be followed.

Jodie and Jonathan performing in Australia.

“For a long while, we wondered ‘are they going to come after us?’” said Jodie.

“We wouldn’t have left lightly, until then we’d never missed a gig. We’d loved it until that point. But we felt very unsafe afterwards.”

Once they arrived home, Jonathan called the agent to let loose a piece of his mind.

“I gave it to him for everything we went through,” he recalled.

“He deceived us the whole way. We could have been in massive trouble.”

Now, the couple want to raise awareness about the dangers of working illegally abroad.

“What that agent did to us was disgusting, tricking us into that position,” said Jonathan.

“The music industry can be cutthroat.”

The beautiful Osaka city skyline.

He warned people not to rush into overseas opportunities without due diligence.

“Don’t be naive. Make sure it’s above board. It can be really scary out there doing it for yourself,” he said.

But Jodie stressed that their experience was not a reflection of Japan, but rather the exploitation of the entertainment industry. She doesn’t want to warn others against visiting the country.

“We love Japan,” she said.

“In no way did the trip leave a bad taste in our mouths about the country, its culture or people.

“The sad truth is that when there’s money to be made, some people are happy to put your life on the line.”

Got a Japanese journey to share? Email [e-mail] or follow his writing on his Instagram here