Two American men were arrested in Japan after one of the men entered the enclosure of Punch the monkey, according to a report from the Japan Times. The two men were apparently filming a stunt meant to promote cryptocurrency, according to videos that have gone viral.
One of the men climbed a fence at the Ichikawa City Zoo in Chiba Prefecture, just outside Tokyo, and donned a costume that had a large smiling yellow face wearing sunglasses, according to videos that are circulating on social media. It doesn’t appear that the man was able to get close to any of the monkeys in the enclosure, including Punch.
Punch the monkey went viral earlier this year after the baby Japanese macaque was abandoned by its mother and given a stuffed orangutan that was treated as its only friend in the world. The story was heartbreaking and the stuffed Ikea toy, which zookeepers dubbed Ora-mama, became a highly sought after collectible fetching high prices on eBay.
Japanese police reportedly arrested an American crypto bro who illegally entered Punch the monkey’s zoo enclosure.
The man’s friend, who was filming it, was arrested too. He told police: “I did not enter the fenced area, so this arrest is not justified”pic.twitter.com/I7BIeYQbEI https://t.co/Lp24zHoZCi
— Jeffrey J. Hall 🇯🇵🇺🇸 (@mrjeffu) May 18, 2026
The two men initially tried to lie about their identities, according to the Japan Times, but the New York Times says they are 24-year-old Reid Jahnai Daysun and 27-year-old Neal Jabahri Duan, citing police in Ichikawa. Dayson reportedly was the one who climbed the fence while Duan filmed. The cryptocurrency these guys were trying to promote appears to be a memecoin called Memecoin.
Memecoins are inherently worthless, of course, and only go up in value when people are hyping them in order to find gullible bag-holders. The Memecoin crypto appears to be up about 3% on the day after news of the two men being detained spread around the world.
The Memecoin X account posted that it wanted to “remind everyone to respect local laws and never put yourselves, others, or any animals at risk” but then started retweeting various news stories about the idiotic stunt. The account wrote, “We have reviewed the footage from several angles, and we are happy to confirm that no monkey was touched or harmed during the stunt. From what we can tell, the sole intention was to give Punch a fresh new teddy bear to keep him company.”
The zoo posted to X that it would make changes in order to better protect the animals, including an expansion of the zone where visitors can’t access and more patrols by security. The Japan Times reports the two men face charges to “forcible obstruction of business,” though it’s unclear whether they’ll actually face charges.
Authorities in countries like Japan and South Korea are a bit exhausted with livestreaming tourists showing up and causing a scene for views. People have been caught doing everything from pull ups on shrines to entering the Fukushima nuclear exclusion zone. An influencer named Johnny Salami (real name Ramsey Khalid Ismael) desecrated a South Korean monument and was beat up by locals before being arrested and sentenced to six months in jail.
