Tansa interviewed Eclipse Inc.’s accountant, who revealed more about Album Collection’s operators and business.

(Illustration by qnel)

It seemed that another, unexpected character was involved in the management of Album Collection.

We heard about him from the father of William Leal, the registered president of the Hawaii-based company Eclipse Incorporated.

According to his father, William had agreed to a request from his brother’s friend Shaun Hart to register Eclipse in Hawaii and open a bank account for the company.

Hart had previously lived in Hawaii. However, after committing a crime unrelated to Album Collection he had fled to Japan before he could be tried. He was unable to return to Hawaii.

From our investigation up to this point, we had learned that Singapore resident Kenichi Takahama and Malaysia resident Keisuke Nitta started “Photo Capsule,” a predecessor app to Album Collection, in 2015. Later, Nitta functioned as sole operator of the app, which he later relaunched as Video Container and Album Collection.

Since starting operations, Photo Capsule and its successor apps have been a hotbed of digital sexual violence against women and children.

In 2020, Nitta transferred Album Collection to Eclipse.

If William’s father’s story was true, then Eclipse was involved with a fugitive wanted by the police.

In April 2024, Tansa and reporters from the NHK program “Innovative Investigations” visited Eclipse’s registered address.

At the registered address…

Initially, Eclipse’s registered address was that of an upscale condominium in a downtown neighborhood. According to William’s father, that was the apartment where the Leal family used to live.

According to the company registry, Eclipse’s address was later changed. The new address belonged to a commercial building in an area with various shopping centers and other facilities. When we looked up the address online, we found an accounting firm called Two Miles.

Two Miles handled accounting for Eclipse.

Two employees spoke with us when we visited the firm’s office — the address really did match. They said they were letting Eclipse use the address for its registration.

“Money came in properly from Apple and Google”

The Two Miles employees we met at the office told us that someone familiar with Eclipse would be in touch. A few days later, a representative from Two Miles’ Hawaii office contacted me, and we set up a time to talk online.

We began by telling them about our investigation up to that point: Album Collection, which Eclipse appeared to be operating, was a hotbed of digital sexual abuse. What’s more, it was likely that a person wanted in the U.S. was involved in Eclipse’s operations.

The Two Miles employee said they had heard that Eclipse operated a dating app that it offered on the Google and Apple’s platforms. This was similar to what William’s father had heard about Eclipse’s business, that it operated a dating app “like Tinder.”

When we asked whether they were aware that Eclipse was connected with crime, the employee responded, “Not at all.”

“Money came in properly from Apple and Google,” they continued. “Because the money was coming through official channels, I just managed the account without thinking more than ‘Wow, ok, they’re making a lot.’”

We asked roughly how much Eclipse had received from Apple and Google annually.

“I think it was at least a million dollars. At a rate of one dollar to 100 yen, that would be over 100 million yen,” they said.

If converted at recent rates, Eclipse made at least 150 million yen annually.

“He was there”

The Two Miles employee said they had been also involved in the process of establishing Eclipse. On one occasion, they met with members of Eclipse in Japan.

What kind of people joined the meeting?

“It was two or three people at first,” they said.

We showed them a picture of William Leal and asked whether they recognized him as one of the Eclipse members who participated in the meeting.

“No, he wasn’t one of them,” they said.

Next we showed them a photo of Shaun Hart.

“Although my memory is a little fuzzy, it seems like him. He was there,” they responded.

“This individual was pretty young,” they continued. “My impression — well, my memory — is that he didn’t really understand anything [in the meeting]. Really, it was like they only had him because he could speak English and they planned to do business in the U.S. That was how little he understood what was going on. That’s what I remember.”

Like a minor gangster

Had it been Seaun Hart, not William Leal, who was at the meeting when Eclipse was launched?

The Two Miles employee said they remembered his name being “Satoshi.” With his American father and Japanese mother, Sean’s Japanese name is Satoshi Kominami.

“This Satoshi seemed mixed. Yes, that’s right, his name was Satoshi,” the employee recalled.

The employee said Satoshi wasn’t the one running the business.

“After the meeting, I was in contact with one of the other members,” they said. “This person really had a clear grasp of the numbers, and he was the one I dealt with from beginning to end.”

They said it was a Japanese person. We asked what he was like.

“He was Japanese and in his 20s. His appearance was a little, well, not exactly like a minor gangster, maybe more cool. Like a put-together minor gangster,” they said.

“He was really on it, and his responses to me were always excellent. He had a great grasp of the numbers, I mean, the financial side of the business,” they added.

Without a contract

Two Miles claimed to be completely unaware of the possibility that Eclipse was involved in criminal activity. But, at the very least, a fugitive from the U.S. was involved with Eclipse at the time it was founded. Did Two Miles have any contractual agreements or procedures to ensure that its clients weren’t involved in criminal behavior?

“We may be in the wrong for this, but we usually start things off pretty casual. So, we don’t have any contracts,” the employee replied.

“If you were to say that we could have done a bit more to prevent [doing business with bad actors], I would have to agree,” they added.

Importing drugs to Okinawa, convicted

Around the same time we were in Hawaii, Eclipse shut down.

“This was the last time we settled the account, as they were considering dissolving the company since the app had been removed by Apple and they could no longer do business. Our company was aware that they were in the final stages before dissolving their company,” said the Two Miles employee.

We also learned that in 2021, Shaun Hart and William Leal were arrested in Japan. They were arrested on suspicion of importing cocaine and marijuana from the U.S., operating out of a U.S. military base in Okinawa. Hart was convicted.

This just raised more questions.

Album Collection ended operations on Jan. 31, 2024. In April of the same year, Eclipse shut down. But if William, the president, had been arrested in 2021, who handled operations after that?

Had a “minor gangster” kind of person or organization, which never appeared publically, played a central role in Album Collection’s operation? At worst, Album Collection may have been a source of revenue for a criminal group.

Finally, why were Apple and Google giving millions of dollars in revenue to these organizations? Many users of Album Collection and similar services have been arrested. App Store reviews also noted that child sexual abuse material was being traded on the apps. Nevertheless, this series of apps continued to operate from at least 2014 to early 2024.

We decided to interview someone who knew these platforms from the inside.

To be continued.

(Originally published on July 18, 2024.)

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