An elementary school vice principal who called himself a ’superstar’ of paying for teenage prostitutes has been arrested in Hokkaido:

Police said the case for which Hosoda was arrested involved him paying a 16-year-old unemployed girl 6,000 yen in cash for sex in a car on the night of Sept. 21. Police said the elementary school vice principal had met the girl in an “encounter cafe” frequently used by singles looking for a partner in Sapporo’s Chuo-ku on about Sept. 13 and they had agreed to meet at a later date. Police added that Hosoda frequented the cafe, going there on an almost daily basis.

“I knew she was under 18, but I have no recollection of anything else that happened,” police quoted Hosoda as saying after his arrest.

Police raided the vice principal’s home following his arrest. They seized 334 DVDs and photos, school uniforms and other belongings. He had images or movies of over 600 underage girls.

The most shocking part of the article[emphasis added]:

….he received payments totaling about 18 million yen for submissions made to pedophile publications during the period from 2000 to 2007, where he used the alias Aspirin Snow.

“I’m really famous among readers of magazines where you can send in pictures,” he was quoted as telling acquaintances.

How was his activity allowed to progress to the point where he had done this hundreds of times? Moreover, where is the news story about the police arresting the publishers of such material? I’m pretty sure publishing that kind of stuff isn’t exactly legal over here…