Japanese ‘sugar baby’ jailed for $1M frauds and selling manual on getting money from men

Mai Watanabe. Photo from Watanabe's YouTube

The Nagoya District Court handed down the sentence to Watanabe, 25, on Monday, as reported by Japan Times.

In addition to the nine-year prison term, the court ordered the "sugar baby" to pay a fine of 8 million yen for deceiving the men, who were aged between 50 and 60, by concocting sorrowful stories about herself to elicit their sympathy between 2021 and 2023.

Watanabe was also charged with assisting a 21-year-old woman in defrauding two men of 10 million yen in 2022 by selling her a manual titled "A Reference Book for Sugar Babies." An additional accusation against her was the evasion of income tax by concealing approximately 40 million yen earned from these scams, according to Kyodo News.

The court described her crimes as "utilizing sweet-talking to make the victims from a dating app fall in love" and "encouraging similar crimes," according to the judgment.

As per Nippon news agency, it is believed that Watanabe used most of the ill-gotten funds to frequent male host bars in Tokyo’s Kabukicho nightlife district.