Aum Supreme Truth: The Terrorist Cult from Japan: Part 2

Last week on The Secret Sits, we had begun exploring the Aum Supreme Truth cult which based its roots in Japan.  The group has built a virtual army and its leader Asahara has ordered the production of 70 tons of a toxic gas; this would be enough to kill every living thing on planet Earth, and that is where we find ourselves while we pick up our story today.

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Transcript

Previously on The Secret Sits, we had begun exploring the Aum Supreme Truth cult which based its roots in Japan.  The group has built a virtual army and its leader Asahara has ordered the production of 70 tons of a toxic gas; this would be enough to kill every living thing on planet Earth, and that is where we find ourselves while we pick up our story today.

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Welcome to The Secret Sits, I’m your host John Dodson.  Join us every Thursday as we uncover the Secrets behind the world’s most fascinating true crime cases.  You can find all episodes of The Secret Sits for free on Apple Podcast, Spotify or where ever you get your podcasts.  And if you like what you are hearing, reach out to us on Instagram and Facebook @The Secret Sits Podcast or on Twitter @SecretSitsPod. Now, on with our story.

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Endo had settled on sarin, or isopropyl methylphosphonofluoridate, because of its ease of production and the availability of its ingredients. It was also one of the most lethal chemical compounds ever devised. A single drop on the skin was sufficient to kill an adult. Like anthrax, sarin caused a violent death.

Within minutes of being exposed to it in either a liquid or gas form, the victim’s nose begins to run, accompanied by tightening of the chest. Violent spasms, vomiting and loss of bladder and bowel control would follow, next came convulsions and coma, until death finally followed.

Masami Tsuchiya, a gifted chemist, finally succeeded in producing liquid sarin in October 1993. He, like Endo, had endured many months of abuse from Asahara for wasting time and money with little result. The end result had come at great cost, not only financially, but also physically. Many accidents had marred the process, injuring several workers permanently. Of all the formulas and methods that had been tried only one proved to be successful, the one that Endo had gleaned from the Russians. Asahara was ecstatic; he finally had his "doomsday" weapon, now all he needed was a place to test it.

During April 1993, Hayakawa was attempting to procure a supply of uranium for a future nuclear project. Unable to buy it in Japan, he and an assistant had traveled to Australia, which had one of the largest uranium deposits in the world. To assist him in his search, he hired a mining consultant and a realtor. By May 1993, he had set up two companies in Australia to aid in the purchase. The realtors took them to outback properties where they tested the soil with electronic devices. One property seemed perfect for their needs, "Banjawarn" station in Western Australia. At a cost of $400,000, it was a bargain. A further $110,000 was spent to obtain the mining rights for the land.

The new property seemed like the perfect place to try out their new arsenal and Asahara and his entourage traveled to the site to oversee the tests. Their arrival met with difficulties when they attempted to bring dangerous chemicals through customs illegally. The authorities had already criticized the sect for the poor maintenance of the property since their purchase and they insisted on the appointment of an Australian farm manager.

Neville Brosnan, wan an experienced sheep station manager, and he was soon hired to run the property. Neville found the presence of the sect disturbing, especially after finding a cache of dangerous chemicals in a shed on the property and being told to mind his own business.

It's not known how the sarin was transported to Australia, but it has been confirmed that it was not made there, as it would have been virtually impossible to produce the compound with the basic facilities that were at the station. Regardless of how the sarin came to be in Australia, the sect had it and wasted no time in testing it on a group of tethered sheep. Within minutes of breathing in the toxic fumes, twenty-nine sheep were convulsing on the ground and died soon after. Asahara was overjoyed with the results, the sarin had finally worked. Now he was anxious to try it on a human target and he already had someone in particular in mind.

One of Japan’s most popular new religions, aside from the Aum group, was Soka Gakkai, the leader of this group was a man named Daisaku Ikeda and Asahara considered this man as his rival.  He chose Ikeda as the target for the group’s first human trial using their sarin nerve agent.  The Aum chose an evening when Ikeda would be speaking at a public rally.  They loaded up one of their spray enabled vehicles and parked it next to the building where the speech was being given.  The device failed to work as intended and the mission was aborted.  The group tried again at another location where Ikeda would be, this time things started off well, until the devise sprung a leak and sarin liquid was splashed onto Asahara’s chief security officer.  This man was quickly given the antidote for the sarin and it prevented the man from a horrible fate.  The first test on a human had been an abject failure. 

Aum attempted to purchase a food processing plant in the town of Matsumoto, this town sits about 100 miles northwest of Tokyo.  When the owner and seller learned that Aum was the purchaser of the property, he quickly filed a law suit to invalidate the sale.  This led to a legal showdown between the man and the very rich cult.  After the court case had been heard by a three-judge panel, Asahara’s lawyer told him that they may lose the case and Asahara knew he had found his next human trial.  And no, Asahara did not want the sarin test to be performed on the seller of the property, no, he ordered his men to kill all three judges who had heard the case.

Asahara’s men loaded a large truck with a battery-powered atomizer and 44 pounds of sarin.  The team scouted the area around the courthouse where the judges worked and they hired a secondary vehicle to act as a lookout.  On the morning of June 27th, 1994 these two vehicles left the Aum compound, later than was planned.  Once the group of on the road they discovered that the vehicle was overweight and they could only travel at half the speed calculated in their plans.  By the time the deadly crew arrived in Matsumoto, the judges had already finished their work for the day and had gone home.

Murai, who had overslept and caused the late start to begin with, decided that the attack would still proceed and they drove to the dormitory housing where the judges lived.  The group selected a location for the truck and they waited. At 10:40PM the members of this death squad each took a sarin antidote and they put on homemade gas masks.  I mean, you have a billion dollars in assets and yet you are making homemade gas masks, come on guys.  After this the atomizer was activated.  This is a densely populated area of the town, but the team did not care about collateral damage.  The truck slowly drove through the target area, however; the mixing device did not operate properly and suddenly a deadly cloud of hydrogen chloride was released into the truck.  The vapor was so thick that the team in the vehicle could no longer see where they were going. 

As the men exited the vehicle and the gas cloud escaped the vehicle with them, the wind switched directions and the gas cloud was blown in the opposite direction from the intended target.  The gas blew across the neighborhood across the street from the dormitory and not long after, dogs began dying, horrible deaths.  Owners of these home became stricken with blinding migraines and violent stomach spasms.  On this night, 150 residents were admitted to local hospitals and 7 succumbed to their illness and died.  The judges, even having after being exposed to a small amount of the gas, survived.  The attack had been a failure, but Asahara was still pleased with the results of this test.

Even after police investigated this incident, they did not implicate Aum.  Instead, police arrested one of the survivors from this attack, Yoshiyuko Kono, because they found some chemicals in a storage shed on his property.  An anonymous message was sent to police after this incident which stated, “Matsumoto was definitely an experiment of sorts. The result of this experiment in an open space: seven dead, over 200 injured. If sarin is released in an enclosed space say, a crowded subway it is easy to imagine a massive catastrophe."

Someone within the sect and with close ties to Asahara had sent the message to warn the police that an even greater disaster that was coming.

Asahara was an obvious megalomaniac and his power trip was at an all time high.  He had an army of loyal followers, scientists, doctors, solders and even members of the Japanese Yakuza had sworn allegiance to this man as their master.

But opposition to this rising cult was also steadily increasing.  Complaints about Aum were filed every week with police all over Japan.  Police organized several raids on Aum properties around Japan, but Aum always managed to keep information at bay when it came to police.  One 62-year-old member of Aum, who had given the group her entire life savings of $600,000, now was disillusioned with the group, so she left and went into hiding.  When Asahara learned of this, he ordered a group of men to find the woman and bring her back.  The men had no luck trying to find the woman, so one day they abducted the woman’s 68-year-old brother, Kiyoshi Kariya, and brought him to the compound at Mt Fuji.  Kariya was beaten and tortured for hours, but he refused to give up the whereabouts of his sister.  Eventually Kiyoshi drifted into a drug-induced coma and died.  His sister remained safe and was never found. 

While investigating Keriya’s abduction, police found a note stating, “If I disappear, I was abducted by Aum Supreme Truth.”  This spurred police into action and they began making final preparations for what would be the largest police raid in Japanese history.

Asahara wanted a full-blown coup with air raids and solders.  But the plan he settled for was an attack on the Tokyo subway.  Asahara gathered over a hundred of his faithful followers and told them it was time to sacrifice themselves and fight as one.  Asahara believed that he may be captured during this, but he assured his followers that he would return.

Tokyo’s train system is massive, when I go to Japan, I am typically there for almost a month at a time and I still get lost in the train stations sometimes.  This train system carries over 2.5 billion passengers per year.  In one day, the trains transport 5 million residents with little to no delays.

The group planned its attack to take place at the Kasumigaseki station, it was to begin on Monday March 20th, 1995 at 8:00AM, directly in the middle of morning rush hour.  Members were selected to carry bags of sarin onto the trains, they would then puncture the bags and leave them on the subway cars to leak out into the train.  The men who were selected for this mission were; Kenichi Hirose, Yasuo Hayashi, Masato Yokoyama, Toru Toyoda and Dr. Ikuo Hayashi.  Sheets of toxic-resistant polythene were made into small bags and filled with the sarin.  These bags were then placed into smaller bags.  Five umbrellas with specially sharpened tips were given to each man and they were ready to go.

The group left the compound sever hours before sunrise, armed with their bags of deadly sarin and a supply of sarin antidote pills.  On their way to the train station, 5 of the men wrapped their sarin packs in newspaper and tape.  Each man was dropped at a different station so they could board separate trains which would all converge on Kasumigaseki station.  Hayashi was the first to be dropped at 7 AM at the Ueno station, he walked through the station and boarded the train.

The next man to begin his mission was Toyoda, he entered the Hibiya station, bought a train ticket and boarded the train.  As Hirose entered his station, he was not as calm as his fellow terrorist and he was sweating quite profusely.  He boarded the train and gently set his package on the ground between his feet.  Yokoyama joined his train on the Marunouchi line and Dr. Hayashi took the Chiyoda line.  All of the men were on their trains and all of the trains were now headed toward the Kasumigaseki station.  As the trains approached their destination, each man punctured their packages with their umbrellas and exited the trains.

Each package acted as expected and began leaking the sarin compound onto the floor of the train car.  Immediately passengers began to cough and experience intense nausea.  As the trains arrived at their next stops, several passengers collapsed onto the train platforms, others ran for the station exits.  Suddenly the areas around the train stations were littered with dead or dying commuters.  Railway staff alerted authorities and ambulances and other emergency vehicles soon responded to the train stations.  Emergency personnel could only speculate what the cause could be. Within just a few short hours, 12 commuters were now dead and 5,500 others were injured to varying degrees.  One woman’s contact lenses were welded to her eyes by the nerve gas and both of her eyes had to be surgically removed.  Military specialists were engaged in the investigation and as they entered the subway station that afternoon, they discovered that it had been a sarin nerve gas attack.  In the complete chaos, the 5 perpetrators made their escape, completely unnoticed.  They traveled back to the Mt. Fuji compound and Asahara congratulated the men, gave them a bunch of money and told them to go away and hide. 

This subway attack spread terror throughout Japan.  Tokyo was one of the largest cities in the world, but it was also one of the safest cities in the world, but now it felt as if the city was under siege.  As the residents of Tokyo tried to come to grips with their shock over this situation, the Tokyo Metropolitan Police were making their final preparations for the largest raid in Japan’s history.

Even though this raid was supposed to be a complete secret, word was quickly spreading amongst the Aum community, many believe that the police departments had Aum spies working within them.  The time and locations for each of these raids began popping up on the internet.   The complex at Mt Fuji was a hive of frenetic activity as sect members rushed around hiding the evidence of their dastardly deeds.  Hundreds of followers, even those closest to the master Asahara, left the compound for secret hideouts.

That same day, Asahara’s Rolls Royce was observed speeding away from the Aum’s headquarters, heading towards Tokyo.  The car was spotted in the parking garage of a luxury hotel within the city and police staked out the location, but as the car left the garage and sped away, police lost sight of the car.

In the early morning hours of Wednesday, March 22nd, over 1,000 police officers stormed the Mt Fuji headquarters of Aum Supreme Truth.  Many of the officers were wearing hazmat suits as they entered the complex.  The members who were still at the complex voiced their objections to the raid, but they did not resist the police.  Police investigated the complex for the next week and found tons of evidence against the cult.  There were enough ingredients to make the amount of sarin able to kill over 4 million people, exotic drugs and a safe containing millions of dollars in cash.  They also located torture chambers and cells, some still contained prisoners of the cult.  Even with this successful raid and all the evidence it produced, police did were not able to make a single arrest in connection with the sarin subway attack.

Aum responded to the raids through its attorneys who publicly denied any wrongdoing and also filed lawsuits against the city for damages.  They told the press that the chemicals and equipment found were for making fertilizers and food products.  Asahara recoded a video message from wherever he was in hiding proclaiming his own innocence, he claimed that the Tokyo subway attack must have been performed by the United States military in an attempt to implicate the cult.

The leaders of Aum became Japan’s most wanted criminals, but they were all still in hiding and they continued to plan more attacks.  Takaii Kunimatsu, was the chief of the national police agency, one day as he was entering his office, he was shot four times with a revolver, but he survived.  Following this a message was sent to a Japanese television network stating that if the investigation into Aum was not stopped, many police would be killed.  Due to the presence of Aum within the USA, the FBI began an official investigation into the group’s activities.  The Japanese authorities refused to share any information with the FBI.  By early April, the investigation was picking up steam and Dr. Hayashi was the first person belonging to the inner circle to be arrested.  Over 100 cult members had been arrested, but only for minor offences.  The group’s hit man, Tomomitsu Niimi was the next to be arrested.  Both of these men were charged with imprisoning followers against their will.  Hayakawa was also arrested and these men were held in isolation without access to legal representation, police hoped that this would illicit confessions from the men.

Asahara was still on the run and in hiding, but that did not prevent the man from producing a booklet that predicted a disaster that would make the Kobe earthquake seem as minor as a fly landing on one’s cheek.  Asahara predicted a date of April 15th, 1995 for this disaster.  Authorities had no choice, but to take this prediction seriously and they declared a state of emergency.  They increased their raids on known Aum buildings hoping to catch the cult members red-handed with sarin or other deadly substances.  After 120 raids all they had found was a note reading, "If police ever enter the place where master Asahara is hiding, we will throw sarin on them and die together.”

As the impending date approached, rumors circulated like crazy.  Shops in Tokyo closed for business as the date approached and many began preparing for the worst.  The Japanese Army stationed warfare specialists around the city and hospitals stocked supplies of antidotes for nerve gases.

Finally, the day arrived, April 15th, and the city waited in terror as thousands of police patrolled the empty street in anticipation of the next terrorist attack.  But nothing happened, nothing at all.  Four days later, as the city began returning to normal, a gas attack was reported in the Yokohama station.  After the gas had cleared, 600 people were treated at local hospitals for soar eyes and throats.  Aum was suspected of the attack, but then cleared after a one-time gangster confessed to the horrendous crime.

The police investigation drug on, they had proved that Aum had manufactured the sarin gas agents, but they did not arrest or charge any sect members with the Tokyo subway gassing.  The media had made heroes out of some of the sect members, particularly, Fumihiro Joyu, who attained almost movie-star status amongst young Japanese women.

Many of the inner circle were still at large.  Media, which had set up an almost permanent camp outside of the Tokyo headquarters for Aum, observed some of these top members entering the building on April 23rd.  Several cars pulled up to the front of the building and members including lawyer Yoshinobu Aoyama entered their building.  At 8:30 PM, Aum’s chief scientist, Hideo Murai, stepped out of a vehicle and made his way toward the building’s entrance.  Just as Murai reached the door, a man stepped out of the crowd and stabbed Murai in his stomach.  The media and the public stood and watched in horror as the man removed the knife and then stabbed Murai again and again, until he slumped to the ground, mortally wounded.

This random attacker gave himself up and he explained that he acted in anger after what the cult had done on the subway.  He later changed his story and said that he was hired by a Yakuza chief to assassinate the man.  Murai died 6 hours later and the man was charged with murder.  After this assassination, 90 more raids were performed.  As police raided Satian 2 at the Fuji compound, they located a basement which they had not seen in any of their previous raids.  Here in this basement, police discovered two of Asahara’s inner circle, Masami Tsuchiya and Seiichi Endo.

Now six weeks after the Tokyo subway attacks, 150 cult members had been arrested, mostly for minor offences.  May 5th was a public holiday in Japan so the subway was packed with commuters traveling out of the city.  The city was still on edge and hundreds of police patrolled through the train stations and tourist attractions.  One of these stations, Shinjuku station, is one of the busiest in Tokyo.  That evening the staff in Shinjuku station were told there was a burning bag in one of the public restrooms.  The staff put out the fire with water, but then the bag began emitting noxious fumes.  When police examined the bag, they found it contained two condoms filled with the chemicals, sodium cyanide and sulfuric acid.

The device was simply designed so that when the acid had eaten through the first condom it would mix with the contents of the second, creating hydrogen cyanide, a deadly gas that had been used by the Nazis in their extermination of the Jews.

If the device had realized its full potential, it would have entered the ventilation system and could have killed over 20,000 commuters. Ten days later, Inoue was seen by police at another subway station and arrested. The Cult master Shoko Asahara was still on the run and was very successful, thus far at evading police.  On May 16th, 1995, media watched as police raided Satian 6, a building the police had supposedly searched many times.  Within this building they found Shoko Asahara hiding inside of a wall and arrested him.  He was dressed in purple robes and his body emitted a foul odor.  Japanese media later speculated that police had known Asahara’s location the entire time, but held off arresting him until they had the maximum amount of media coverage.

Even as all of the cult leaders were now in jail, the attacks still continued.  The same day Asahara was arrested a letter bomb arrived at the office of Yukio Aoshima, the governor of Tokyo.  The letter was opened by a secretary and it detonated, resulting in the man losing all of his fingers from his left hand.  Two more cyanide devices were found in other Tokyo train station, but neither had detonated.

Even though all of the leaders of the cult were in jail, the attacks continued. A letter bomb was delivered to the office of Yukio Aoshima, the Tokyo governor. When the device was opened by one of Aoshima's secretaries, it detonated and blew the fingers off the man's left hand.

Two more cyanide devices were found in Tokyo's subways, but neither had detonated. In all, four more devices would be found, each with the potential to kill thousands.

Trials for the cult members began, Asahara had been charged with 23 counts of murder.  As Asahara stood before the judge, he was surrounded by his arm of 12 lawyers, he pleaded not guilty to all charges.  Charges for other high-ranking members included; murder, attempted murder, kidnapping, manufacturing drugs and many other charges.  Members including Inoue, Hayakawa and Endo gave full confessions to the court in order to avoid the death penalty.  Asahara was found guilty of masterminding the sarin attacks and he was sentenced to death.  Asahara’s lawyers appealed this ruling, but they were unsuccessful.  Many of the other high-ranking members also received death sentences for their participation.  Shortly after Asahara’s conviction he abandoned his position as the guru of his sect and maintained a vow a silence afterward, he even refused to communicate with his lawyers and family members.

On June 21st, 2995, Asahara finally admitted that in January of 1994 he had ordered the murder of sect member, Kotaro Ochida, a pharmacist at an Aum hospital, the man had tried to escape the cult compound.  On October 10th 1995, Aum Shinrikyo was stripped of its official religious status by Japan and the group was bankrupt by 1996.  Despite this the group continues to operate under the constitutional guarantee of freedom of religion.  It continues to be funded by its lucrative computer store business and through donations, the government keeps a very close eye on the group now though.  There have been attempts to completely ban the group under Japan’s 1952 Subversive Activities Prevention Law, but this idea was rejected by the Public Examination Commission in January of 1997.

Following Asahara’s arrest the sect underwent several changes, for a short time, Asahara’s two preteen sons replaced their father as the group’s guru.  Then in February of 2000, the group rebranded its self under the new name Aleph.  At this time, they also announced changes to some of their doctrine, more subversive text related to the Vajrayana Buddhist doctrines were removed, removed as well were Biblical elements.  The group made their first official apology to the victim of the sarin gas attack and they established a special compensation fund for the victims.

One of the senior members of the group under Asahara, who did not face any serious charges, became the official leader of the organization.  Three fugitives from the original group were still being perused some 15 years later in 2011, Makoto Hirata surrendered himself to police and was taken into custody, he was suspected of the 1995 obduction of Kiyoshi Kariya, a non-member who died during an Aum kidnapping and interrogation.  On June 3rd, 2012, police captured Naoko Kikuchi, the second of these fugitives, after receiving tips from local residents.  After arresting Kikiuchi, police were able to locate the last of these 3 fugitives, Katsuya Takahashi, who was taken into custody on June 15th 2012.  Takahashi had been the driver in the Tokyo gas attacks and he was caught still in Tokyo after 17 years on the run.

On July 6th, 2018, Asahara and six of his faithful Aum Shinrikyo members were put to death, by hanging.  The Japanese Justice Minister Yoko Kamikawa said that the crimes, “plunged people, not only in Japan but in other countries as well, into deadly fear and shook society to its core”.  Amnesty International said the use of the death penalty in this case was too severe.  And I will say that executions are rare in Japan, but according to polls, the public supported the death penalty in this case.  The Aum members executed on January 6th included:

·         Shoko Asahara, the original leader of Aum Supreme Truth

·         Yoshihiro Inoue, Aum's "head of intelligence" and chief coordinator of the Tokyo subway sarin gas attack

·         Tomomitsu Niimi, the getaway driver for Ikuo Hayashi, one of the perpetrators of the Tokyo subway attack

·         Tomomasa Nakagawa, one of the perpetrators of the Sakamoto family murder

·         Kiyohide Hayakawa, Aum's "construction minister", convicted of strangling a young cult member in 1989 suspected of dissidence from the group.

·         Seiichi Endo, the "head scientist" of Aum Supreme Truth

·         Masami Tsuchiya, Aum's chief chemist and director of the sarin gas manufacturing

The six remaining Aum Shinrikyo members were executed on 26 July 2018. Four men who had perpetrated the Tokyo subway attack:

·         Yasuo Hayashi

·         Kenichi Hirose

·         Toru Toyoda

·         Masato Yokoyama

And Two more perpetrators of the Sakamoto family murder:

·         Kazuaki Okazaki

·         Satoro Hashimoto

Shoko Asahara’s youngest daughter will at some point, be allowed to collect her father’s ashes, she urged her family members and the existing cult members to put an end to the Aum and to stop hating society.  The ashes are currently being housed at the detention center out of fears that the release of them will inspire retaliation from devout members.

The group, which now exists, Aleph has approximately 1,700 members, of these members around 650 live in communal compounds.  The group operates 26 facilities throughout 17 prefectures.  The Japanese public still distrusts the newly formed group and their compounds are quite often surrounded by protest banners, placed by local residents.  In January of 2000 an anti Aum law was passed and the remnants of the group were placed under surveillance for a period of three years.  This law also requires that the group submit a list of all members and their details, including all assets to authorities.

In January of 2003, Japan’s Public Security Intelligence Agency received permission to extend their surveillance of the group for a further 3 years, this was owning to the fact that they found new evidence that the newly formed group was still idolizing Asahara.

Fumihiro Joyu, a former Aum member, who was head of the group’s operations in Russia, announced that he was leaving the group on March 8th, 2007.  He has, however; formed a new group called Hikari no Wa, which translates to The Circle of Light and he claims this group is committed to uniting science and religion to form a new science of the human mind.  His goal with this new group is to move away from criminal activity and move towards purely the religious ideology.  

By April of 2011, Aum only had about 1,500 members left and just two months after this the group reported their current numbers at just 1,030 members.

Japan's Public Security Examination Commission announced in January 2015 that Aum Supreme Truth's two spinoff groups would remain under surveillance for three more years starting in February of 2015. 

In 2014, The Japan Times alleged that "good looks and commitment to a cause", demonstrated by Aleph, "inspire a new generation of admirers". Dissatisfaction with society and low degrees of success in life make them "identify with the cult" and "adore the cultists as if they were pop idols".[77]

Sometime after April 2013, the Public Security Intelligence Agency took a photograph inside of Aleph's facilities. In this photograph, a bundle of papers is pierced with a knife on an altar-like object.   The papers included photographs of PSIA employees and directors, police officers, and lawyer Taro Takimoto, who helped followers leave Aum Shinrikyo.   At least at this point in time, Aleph still displayed portraits of Shoko Asahara and demanded followers' dependence using videos of Asahara. 

On 5 April 2016, the Investigative Committee of Russia announced it opened a criminal case against Aum Shinrikyo followers and that its investigators, along with their Federal Security Service forces, were conducting raids in Moscow and Saint Petersburg to find the group members and confiscate their literature, religious items and electronic information. On 20 September 2016, the Russian government banned Aum Supreme Truth in their country, officially declaring it a terrorist organization. 

In November 2017, Japanese police raided five offices of Aleph in an investigation into the group's recruiting practices after a woman paid tens of thousands of yen for study sessions. 

And finally on January 1st, 2019, just after midnight in Tokyo, a 21-year-old Aum sympathizer named Kazuhiro Kusakabe, drove around street barricades and intentionally rammed his rental vehicle into pedestrians who were packed into the narrow Takeshita Street in the crowded Harajuku shopping district for a New Year’s eve celebration, this was an intentional terrorist attack in "retaliation for an execution" Kusakabe stated. It remains unclear whether Kusakabe was referencing the 2018 executions of the Aum Supreme Truth doomsday cult members directly or if he was just making a broader statement. The attack, on New Year's Day, left eight injured. A ninth person was also directly injured by the driver as he exited his vehicle.

Aum Supreme Truth, still exists today, in some form, so be careful and believe your friends when they tell you, you may have joined a cult.