Three people have been arrested for forcing teenage girls into prostitution by threatening to expose naked photographs of them, police said Friday. Takashi Maeda, a 30-year-old operator of a prostitution club and two of his accomplices are accused of forcing three 16-year-old girls to prostitute themselves at hotels from July to September this year.

The three girls took between 30,000 yen and 50,000 yen per customer, which they gave to Maeda and the other two. The three, however, paid almost nothing to the girls, police said.

The three picked up the girls in the Shibuya entertainment district of Tokyo and through Internet dating sites, using the pitch, "We have a job high school students can do."

They took the girls to a hotel where they took pictures of them naked and then kept the photographs in a bid to prevent the girls from running away.

The men forced the girls to live in short-stay apartments and prostitute themselves by pretending to be members of a criminal organization.

"We are yakuza. If you try to escape, we'll sell you to a tuna ship," the officers quoted one of the three as telling the girls.

They also created a job manual for the girls, which read, in part, "If undercover police posing as customers question you, tell them you are not prostitutes," and "If your parents find out what you do, don't say you are working for our organization."

The three men also used Internet sites to lure customers. (Mainichi Shimbun, Japan, Oct. 31, 2003)