Malaysian man poses as woman to roofie, rob Japanese man in Tokyo hotel

A Malaysian national has been arrested by the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department in Shibuya, Tokyo, on suspicion of stealing cash from a Japanese man after luring him to a hotel and serving him alcohol spiked with sleeping pills, rendering him unconscious.

“I thought the whole time that [he] was a woman,” the victim said.

He accompanied the suspect to a hotel. But the woman was actually a long-haired man, who was filmed emerging from the police station with his head bowed. The police have named the suspect as 29-year-old Malaysian national Muhammad Shafiq bin Baharen.

The incident took place late at night in Shibuya ward. Bin Baharen allegedly invited a man in his twenties to a hotel and served him champagne laced with sleeping pills, urging him to “keep drinking,” according to a FNN report.

It is not specified if the location of the crime was a regular hotel or one of Shibuya’s many love hotels for short-stay sexual encounters.

Bin Baharen is suspected of stealing ¥27,000 in cash as well as a cash card from the victim after rendering him unconscious.

The victim allegedly drank four glasses of champagne. He was suspicious when he noticed white powder at the bottom of the glass, but he still downed the booze. He then woke up to find himself alone in the room.

But the plot thickens: the victim was apparently the initiator of the encounter after approaching the suspect on the street. They communicated by a translation app.

As for why he ended up going to the hotel with the suspect, the victim explained: “I was looking for a woman to hang out with.”

In reality, however, the suspect was a man. It is unclear if Bin Baharen was intentionally posing as a woman to attract local men, or if this was a simple case of mistaken identity and he just rolled with it.

Under questioning, the suspect has so far denied the allegations. It is not apparent how police were able to identify and arrest Bin Baharen, though the unnamed victim reportedly went to a police substation outside Shibuya Station after he regained consciousness and realized he had been robbed, according to TV Asahi.