Since late January, Japan has been gripped by a spate of robberies and the subsequent revelations that social media appears to have made it possible for a disparate group of individuals organized from overseas to carry them out.
From the first signs that the same actors could be pulling the strings behind the robberies across the country to the news that the alleged ringleaders were operating from a detention center in the Philippines, the crimes have shined a spotlight on a recent insidious trend called "yami baito" — literally "dark part-time work."
Most commonly associated with facilitating offenses referred to as special fraud, in which sophisticated methods are used to trick people into handing over money and valuables, it involves recruiting individuals via social media with promises of big payments.