Romance Scam: Answering your questions

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Japanese prison conditions, the Yakuza, and what happened to Kelly.

Answering your questions about Donna Nelson, I'm Stephen Stockwell.

Welcome to the case of the romance scam.

Since her arrest in early January 2023, Donna Nelson Nelson and her family have been living a nightmare.

Two kilograms of methamphetamine were found in the lining of a suitcase that she took to Japan.

Her family has always maintained she was conned into traveling into Asia by a man met online two years prior.

The innocent victim of a love scammer.

It just seems like a bad dream.

I've never

thought

that she would have ever been involved in this.

For the last few weeks, we have been bringing you the story of Donna Nelson, a Perth woman convicted of drug trafficking in Japan after she says she was caught up in a romance scam, tricked by a man that she was hoping to one day marry into bringing drugs into the country.

We had the appeal result that her conviction wouldn't be quashed and she would be serving her six-year sentence in Japan, in a Japanese prison.

And throughout this story, you have had so many questions about the Japanese justice system, the conditions that Donna is living in in this prison in Japan, and so many other aspects of this case.

So in this episode, I have brought James Oten, the ABC's North Asia correspondent, and Olivia Rousseau back into the studio to answer and quell your voracious appetite for information.

James, Olivia, thank you so much for joining us on the case of.

Hey, good to be here.

Good to be back.

Now, as I mentioned, this is all about answering your questions.

So we have an email address, thecaseof at abc.net.au, and we're going to run through some of these now.

So I want to start with a question here from Emily from Adelaide.

Emily writes, Hello, I've been listening to your podcast all the way through the Aaron Patterson case, the croc helicopter one, and now to Donna Nelson.

Firstly, I've really enjoyed it and found it very informative.

What's happened to Donna sounds so devastating.

I have a question.

You've spoken about Donna Nelson's conditions in prison.

My question is: why is she in solitary?

Why can't she speak to anyone?

Why is her family not allowed contact?

Is this how Japanese prisoners are treated?

It is.

Yes, is the short answer.

The question of why is

a little harder for me to get through.

I mean, the Japanese system is just quite harsh,

and it will just come down to the idea of punishment versus rehabilitation.

And this is a dial that all countries sit somewhere on.

There's all these famous stories about how in the Scandinavian countries prisoners get to

walk dogs outside and

have a good living and

get a degree and stuff like that.

Now, I'm being a bit facetious.

I don't exactly know the specifics of the Scandinavian prison system, but you get the idea that you have on some systems really put the emphasis on, I guess, more rehabilitation.

Some prison systems put the dial more up the punishment end.

And Japan is certainly up more the punishment end.

We've gone over before about the six years she got.

That was considered lenient by Japanese standards.

Six years would be considered harsh by Australian standards.

So the sentencing is harsher here, typically.

This is a country that still has a death penalty, mind you.

Olivia, can you remind us the conditions that Donna is living in in a Japanese prison at the moment?

Because I know they've changed from kind of pre-trial to post-trial.

What is it like for her at the moment and do we know why it's like that?

Just to cut to the chase, we don't know why it is like that for

all prisoners convicted of similar crimes, I believe.

But pre-trial, pre-verdict, the conditions were exactly the same as they are now.

but on top of that, there was a no-communication order.

So she couldn't write any letters or communicate with anyone except for the lawyer and the diplomats and a pastor, religious leader who visited the prison.

Now, at least, she can write letters to her family and receive letters to her family and have visits from family if they're in Japan.

I believe it's only 20 minutes and they have to have a translator.

And at the moment, the prison she's in, I think she can have unlimited visits,

but that will change when she goes, is moved on to the next prison.

But she's still essentially in solitary confinement.

She still has, you know, 23 and a half hours a day where she's alone in her cell and has half an hour where she can go out and exercise.

She's only allowed to speak Japanese.

She doesn't speak Japanese.

She has no interaction with any other English speakers in the prison.

Occasionally, she's speaking with the guards now, that's all.

So she feels that it's better where she is now, but she'll be moved within the next couple of months probably to another prison where it'll be more similar to the condition she was in before.

But, you know, it's pretty extraordinarily strict.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Thank you, Olivia.

Thank you, James.

Thank you, Emily, from Adelaide.

We have another question here from Maria.

Maria writes, hi there.

I just wanted to firstly say how great this podcast is.

I think you all do a fantastic job, and I love how clearly you explain what's going on.

In the case of the romance scam, I'm wondering where Kelly is in it all.

It sounds like there's no dispute within the courtroom over the fact that he gave Donna the drugs.

The only dispute is whether or not she knew she was doing it or not.

So have the Japanese police gone after him?

Do they know where to find him?

Short answer is no, and they never tried to find Kelly.

The longer answer is that we don't think he's in Japan.

And so there's only so far the Japanese police are going to go.

But of course, there's going to be some serious questions about how far they even tried to go.

And if we go over the initial

day when Donna was arrested at the airport, both Olivia and I have gone over this point, that Donna Nelson has told them straight away, this is what's happened.

I brought the bag for this man.

I'm meeting them at the airport hotel, and there appears to have been nothing done to pursue that.

And we've gone over previously that feels like a wasted opportunity.

I don't know the specific reasons why

law enforcement didn't go down that path, but Donna Nelson had made it pretty clear what she was doing with the bag, and she's not going anywhere.

She's not going to sneak out of Japan.

So that's an issue that right from the get-go, it feels like

the decision has been, we've got our criminal, and that's the end of the matter.

And going after Kelly, we don't know where in the world he is.

We just don't know.

Not Japan is the short answer.

But also, Ashley did hand over his, she had his phone number and she had photographs and and details that she handed over to the AFP and lodged a cybercrime report, which was never followed up.

She was told that that was the beginning of lodging

Interpol report

and she only heard about two years later from the WA police who'd been handed it who said the Japanese police will be dealing with us this, so we've closed the case.

Yeah, right.

Maria, a great question, Olivia James, thank you for answering it.

Another question here from Brooke, which is on a similar vein as well, talking about the kind of the organization and what follow-up was done.

Brooke writes, Hi guys, really enjoying the pod.

What was the street value of the drugs Donna had in the suitcase?

Two years of talking to someone is a very long game to get someone to unknowingly traffic drugs.

Is there any evidence Kelly was talking to other ladies and had multiple love scams during the same trip?

The lady's unaware of the drugs and not caught by the Japanese police.

I mean, James, just quickly on the first one, how much were the drugs that Donna was taking to the country worth?

Yeah, so the drugs had a reported value of $720,000.

Two kilograms of methamphetamine is not terribly small, of course, but you wouldn't classify it as big fish either.

So that's how much.

Two kilograms of methamphetamine, around 720,000 Australian dollars.

In terms of how these syndicates work,

look, we don't know with Kelly specifically, of course, but I do know with these syndicates that they are networks of people.

The fact is, Donna may have been speaking to multiple people that use that number.

Kelly might not even be one person.

Certainly, there were photos of one person.

Donna had video chats with one person.

But there might have been moments that someone else was handling that phone number.

That's how these scams work.

That's how scams do work.

It's rarely just one person just sitting there because it's too exhausting.

So, for all we know, Kelly has many other people that he's also speaking with.

And that's why I don't think you can look at this as as one person has put in just two years on one other person to get two kilograms of methamphetamine.

They would have

many

stokes in the fire because some won't work out, some will be caught, some will succeed.

So that's how these networks work.

Very sophisticated big criminal enterprises.

You know, there was an argument made by some legal experts that Donna was trafficked.

Well, exactly.

You know, that this was a case of human trafficking because Donna was trafficked as a mule.

Yeah.

You know, and the family have had other people contact them.

A Canadian woman who was imprisoned in Hong Kong and then subsequently released with a very, very similar story and similar situation.

And they were wondering if it might have been the same

network that had done it to her.

But also remember that Kelly had tried to meet Donna in several different places.

He'd said to her, you know,

we could meet in

Guyana, we could meet in Hong Kong.

Like when they tried to organise different holidays, he was saying, we could meet in all these other places where I have my fashion businesses and I'll be working.

So the fact that Kelly had asked her to go on holiday with him in several different countries gave the impression that this criminal enterprise, this syndicate, was operating globally and there would be a number of ways for her to be used to traffic drugs somewhere.

Yeah.

And they just activate their person wherever it was.

So waiting in that hotel airport probably wasn't Kelly, as James said, but it would have been someone waiting, working for the syndicate.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Thank you very much, James and Olivia.

It's a wonderful question, Brooke.

So yeah, it's something I've been wondering as well.

So thank you for asking it.

So we can dive into it in this episode.

Another question here from Kaz.

Kaz writes, hi, Stocky, Olivia, and James.

Firstly, thank you for producing true crime content that is intelligent and socially responsible.

One of the things that really impressed me from the mushroom case was that you were all able to stay so impartial throughout your reporting, really giving nothing away about what you really thought.

I've noticed this season in the romance scan, we're hearing more of a perspective on the case from you all.

Could you talk us through that decision?

Is it because it's happening in a foreign justice system or because it's just so obvious?

Thanks again for your awesome work.

James, I'll throw this one to you to begin with.

I mean, really what it comes down to is that we've got a lot more freedom when we're discussing proceedings that have kind of finished, which in the trial of Donna had, and then we're also working in a different jurisdiction, which loosens up some of the restrictions, right?

I don't really agree with the idea of the question that I've kind of been projecting more opinions about whether or not Donna Nelson is guilty or not guilty.

I think I've been balanced in putting the two different

views across that we've heard from the lawyers and the prosecutors.

Perhaps, you know, I guess some of the stuff that I've said, which may seem a bit more critical, was highlighting the opaqueness of the Japanese system, which obviously would then come from an Australian perspective.

You know, I've been a journalist in Australia for a lot longer than I've been a journalist in Japan, and for me, it's paramount that courts are open and transparent.

It's a cornerstone of our criminal justice system.

I mean, if you really want some opinions, I even think we should be more open and transparent in Australia by letting cameras in more regularly.

There are some obvious exceptions to that rule.

But

I think Japan hasn't gone down that path.

But then, of course, and the other side of it is me being clear about how the system arrived at the decision it did, which is that it decided Donna was negligent,

and people can make their own judgment on whether or not they agree with that assessment, that she must have had doubts and must have been suspicious about the case.

People will make their own judgments.

I've certainly not expressed my own personal view about whether or not the Japanese system arrived at the right decision.

I think the fact that the case is over means that, you know, we can can sort of speculate and talk about it more freely, as you said.

But also, I suppose from my reporting, it's been from the perspective of the family and it's been very much a personal human experience rather than I wasn't reporting on the trial per se.

I was sort of talking about what happened through their

eyes and looking at the fallout from it.

So that's sort of where I sit now is reflecting their experience as well.

Yeah.

And I mean, as well

as well as all that, you know, this is a very different style of podcast to Mushroom or even the Crock Wrangler series that we were doing just prior to Donna Nelson as well.

You know, when we're covering a live trial, we're much more restricted in what we can say.

But also, you know, we need to be very careful around not influencing jurors and things like that.

So, you know, there's much less analysis coming out of what's unfolding and whether or not things were, you know, done in the most effective way.

So that's probably the difference you're hearing.

And I mean, in this story as well, because we have been kind of telling something that has unfolded previously, there's a bit more storytelling involved as well.

So we were helping you understand who Donna was, how she ended up in that situation.

And then you're probably taking a lot of that with you as you're listening to the story as well.

Just adding to your point, Stocky, yes, there is a big difference between when you're dealing with a jury versus right now we're dealing with appeal.

So with a jury, you can influence them.

Now, they're told not to listen to the media and read the media and so on.

But when when it comes to judges, the bench is so much higher.

I mean, judges know the legal system back the front.

I can't influence a judge, no matter how opinionated and incorrect I may be.

A judge is just a different level as well.

And during this case with Donna Nelson, we have been dealing with the appeal period, which is just a panel of three judges.

There wasn't the civilian jury.

Already that in itself does allow some more flexibility and freedom.

Yeah, absolutely.

James, Olivia, your insights into this are fantastic.

Kaz, it's a wonderful question because this is something that we spend a lot of time thinking about and working through.

So having the opportunity to explain it is welcome.

So yeah, wonderful questions sent through to the case of atabc.net.au.

If you have any of your own questions around this or anything else that we're covering, please get in touch, the casesov at abc.net.au.

It is lovely to hear from you.

We get wonderful suggestions of other trials we should look at, other cases and all of that.

So yeah, please keep sending it all through.

A wonderful question here from Emily in Canada, which is something I've been thinking about a lot as I've been reading the ABC's online coverage of Donna Nelson's trial and appeal and everything around that.

Emily writes, Hello, thanks for your great podcast.

I've enjoyed all of your content over the various cases.

My question relates to court sketches.

I notice in the current case of the romance scam, the court sketches in the media all look to be in a very Japanese style of drawing.

I noticed that in comparison, the style of drawing and of court sketches in Canada, the UK, and Australia are generally all very similar.

Sometimes capture a lot of movement of the court and the colour of the clothing, etc.

Could you speak to the differences in court sketches based on the location a little bit?

James, you know, tell me a bit about the Japanese style of court artistry.

Because, yeah, as Emily points out, very different to what we see in the media in Australia.

It is different and the answer is very simple.

The court sketch artist is Japanese.

So obviously there is difference in styles of animation and that style is what I see on Japanese television.

So I'm not asking him to make it Japanese because I'm in Japan, you know, to make it more exotic or anything like that.

It's just his style.

It's the style I see on television here with other court artists.

I would like to add just the mini miracle of these court artists because

he is getting me two sketches

for each case I've engaged him with, not every day, but most days,

within a two-hour kind kind of window so it's pretty impressive work and just the speed that these people can work at and just before the court case they will say to me what are you looking for and i will kind of say i want a close-up of donor today and so a wide of the courtroom to match with different moments of the court proceedings so they will take instructions about what you're looking for but then it's really down to them and their style getting out quickly and efficiently and as accurately as possible

we we actually when i was over there i thought i would use some of of the drawings in the story I was doing for Australian Story.

So I wanted, I asked James to ask the artist to get the daughters sitting there and a sense of them there as well.

And I think one of them commented that the artist had drawn them looking like Snoop Dog.

So they had a good laugh at how they sort of came across.

And Donna's hair was initially done very grey.

And I asked for it to be changed to black, which it only has a smattering of grey.

So there was a concern about vanity there too.

But yeah, it is a different style.

And I think we see it that way.

But obviously in Japan, it's completely normal.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

No, it's a fantastic question, Emily.

So thank you so much for writing through.

And yeah, again, giving us the opportunity to explain some of these things.

I mean, this is a great example of why I love getting these emails because I had thought so much about that artwork, but never thought to bring it up in one of these episodes.

So yeah, thank you for getting in touch, Emily, and prompting me to get into that one.

And as we get to the end of this episode, we have one of my favorite segments, segments, which is what I like to call more of a statement, where people get in touch, not with a direct question, but with an experience that is really interesting or an insight that

is quite cutting.

And I think Maddie, who's listening from London, her question kind of fits this bill.

She writes, Hi, Kesov Crew.

I hope you're all well.

Thank you for your riveting podcast.

I was so sorry to hear about the outcome of Donna's appeal, but unfortunately, not surprised.

I was an exchange student in Kobe in the early 2010s, and I remember being told that if something happened to me, don't bother going to the police.

They'll just arrest the nearest adjacent foreigner, if anything.

Instead, go to the local Yakuza head, as they have an incentive to squash local non-Yakuza crime, and we're invested in keeping their backyard clean and safe for their own families.

I never did go to them, so I can't vouch for how that would have gone in reality.

Anyway, I thought this might add some colour to your recent episode's commentary on the police in Japan.

James, your thoughts, insights, or is this one you'd rather stay out of?

Look, first of all, the Yakuza has been really squished.

When the police turned on the Yakuza, I don't know exact years, this happened, maybe a decade and a half ago, a couple of decades ago, they went hard.

The Yakuza, for all intents and purposes, barely exists in the way people imagine that they do.

They're much more white-collar crime and just kind of hidden.

The idea that you'll have some local thug with a bunch of tattoos and a missing pinky, that's gone.

So Japan has really...

squashed, went hard, and dare I say, was victorious in defeating the Yakuza, but of course there's still criminal networks in Japan.

Secondly with police.

Look,

there have been criticisms you hear a lot that police just don't aggressively pursue some

crimes and I think one of the examples I've got which you hear a lot about is scams in Tokyo where you're walking down in Shinjuku which is the red light district of Japan, of Tokyo.

There have been examples of people being charged an exorbitant amount of money on their credit cards or even drugged during this process.

And suddenly they've woken up the next day with huge amounts of money that's been spent on their credit card.

They've gone to police and police have just said, well, what's the crime?

Your credit card wasn't stolen.

You know, your credit card's in your wallet.

I can see it.

It's like, no, no, but they took it and they've obviously ramped up the prices and police have done nothing.

There's been another story in The Guardian earlier this year of a tourist finding a Japanese man, I presume Japanese man, under her bed at a hotel.

And she screamed and this man leapt out and run down.

But she said she found the response from Japanese police appalling because they're like,

what does he look like?

He looks like an Asian man.

Okay, well there's lots of Asian men here.

There's not much we can do about it.

Again, I've got to be careful that I'm not making these sweeping generalizations about the Japanese police force, but you do hear these stories that they are reluctant to go after some of this stuff and that certainly i guess has a bit of a chilling then effect that people feel they don't want to trust the japanese police um

and i mentioned previously one criticism before just this idea that they they don't want unsolved crimes in their books so a common response is that is to not get it on the book in the first place again that's not me saying for sure that's what the thinking is here but i'm just saying this is kind of a criticism you hear floating around yeah no it's uh great insight james uh i was including that one as a bit of a gag, but you've taken us in a really interesting place.

So, thank you for answering it, and also, Maddie, for sending it through as well.

So interesting to hear how Japan has changed over the last little while, but also how, yeah, it's policed generally.

And our last question for this episode is from Alice.

Alice writes: Hi there, I've been listening since the beginning of your podcast and watched the ABC's Australian Story episode about Donna a few months back.

I'm hoping that the fame you've gained will help bring Donna home.

How can I or other listeners help get Donna home?

Donna's story is horrific, and the fact that she's paying the price for a crime committed by criminals too elusive for even the authorities to catch is not just unjust but offensively lazy.

I sincerely hope that this nightmare is nearly over for her and for everyone in her life who's been impacted by this, her family and her community.

Olivia, is there anything people can do?

Yes, there's two things people can do.

Her daughters have started a fundraiser at MyCause called Bring Donna Home.

They're raising money so that family can go and visit her and that they can also

keep her house for her, not sell her car, like keep Donna's life for her for when she comes back, but primarily so they can afford to go and see her and send her things, send her books,

send her different things to keep her sane.

And the other thing that Donna would ask and that she wrote to me a lot about primarily was spreading the word and looking out for other people and trying to help other people.

And even after the Australian story went out, the family was contacted by a family friend in the US saying, I was chatting to someone online that was very similar,

very similar scenario.

I've ended that conversation.

I think they were trying to scam me too.

So Donna would say, Donna would want people to spread the word and to stop other women falling for this kind of scenario or getting trapped in this kind of scenario.

Yeah, absolutely.

That's a wonderful question, Alice.

So thank you for sending it through to the case of at abc.net.au.

And Olivia, thank you for answering as well, giving us that insight into ways that people who are listening can help support Donna Nelson.

If you want to help people learn more about this story, you can also share this podcast, The Case of the Romance Scam.

So that's a simple way you can help inform other people as well.

And if you're using a podcast platform that isn't the ABC Listen app that lets you rate and review podcasts, please do that, you know, as well as your group chats.

That's another way you can help more people find out about Donna's story.

But this does bring us to the end.

The case of the romance scam for now, at least.

If there are any updates, we will obviously jump back into your feeds and fill you in with Olivia and James.

But, you know, until then, James Oten, the ABC's North Asia correspondent, thank you for taking the time, you know, to take us through all of the reporting that you've done and to bring us this story on the case of.

Thank you, mate.

It's been a pleasure.

And Olivia, you know, your connections to the family, you know, the stories you've told, the...

the way you've been able to give us that insight into what the family's been thinking and what they've been going through through all this as well has been incredibly valuable.

So really appreciate you being here as well.

I'll pop a link to Olivia's Australian story on Donna Nelson in the show notes so you can watch that.

But yeah, really appreciate you being with us and sharing your insights.

Yeah, it's been a pleasure.

It's great that it's getting over our time.

To make sure you're at the front of the line for any future updates on the case of the romance scam, do grab yourself the ABC listener because that's where our episodes will appear before they rock up anywhere else.

But also, you know, we cover other trials, proceedings through this podcast.

So it's the best place to listen to all of that.

Very soon, we're going to be diving into the case of Snowtown Parole, where we look at the reason that the youngest murderer involved in those killings is now eligible for parole.

We'll be getting that to you next week.

It's only a couple of weeks until he'd be back in the community.

So that is a very interesting story.

And the reasons behind his parole are, I think, worth hanging around for, I would say.

As well as that.

case we're going to have an update on the case of the crock wrangler matt right's team have appealed his guilty verdict on two counts of attempting to pervert the course of justice.

So we're joined by Olivana Lathuris for an episode of that on Thursday.

The team is actually back in court today, so Ollie will be able to take us through the appeal, everything that's happened in court today.

There has been quite a significant amount of drama associated with that case as well.

So yeah, we'll be back in your feed on Thursday with the case of the crock wrangler.

Thank you so much for being here, for listening to this podcast, and I will talk to you very soon.

The case of the romance scam is produced by ABC Audio Studios and ABC News.

This series is reported by James Oten and Olivia Rousseau and presented by me, Stephen Stockwell.

Supervising producer for this episode is Tamark Ranswick, and our executive producer is Claire Rawlinson.

I'd like to say a big thank you as well to our true crime colleagues, development producer Alicia Bridges, who has been a huge help planning this, as well as supervising producer Yasmin Parry, who both did a huge amount of work getting this series together, as well as audio studios manager Eric George.

This episode was produced on the land of the Gadigal and Wurundjeri people.

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