Kazuya Ayabe (2 July 1983-) was a Japanese policeman who served as a detective in the Organized Crime Unit of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department's Kabukicho precinct. Reputed to be a "dirty cop" who regularly sold information on investigations, he was arrested in 2018 after being framed for "the Mole"'s serial murders, only to be acquitted in January 2019 after private detective Takayuki Yagami uncovered Mitsuru Kuroiwa and Yoji Shono's culpability.
Biography[]
Ayabe in 2019
Kazuya Ayabe was born in Tokyo, Japan on 2 July 1983, and he became a detective in the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department. Ayabe served alongside Mitsuru Kuroiwa in Kabukicho's Organized Crime Unit, and, while his partner moonlighted as a hitman, Ayabe secretly sold information on police investigations and also helped run the secret L'Amant casino under Koi Wife. In December 2018, his associate Masaharu Kaito introduced him to the private detective Takayuki Yagami, helping him with his investigations about Red Nose's robbery of the Matsugane-gumi, the "Mole" serial killings, and the AD-9 conspiracy.
When Kuroiwa caught wind of Ayabe's assistance to Yagami, he decided to frame him for the murder of Yagami's former coworker Masamichi Shintani, a lawyer who threatened to expose Yoji Shono's responsibility for "the Mole" serial murders (which Kuroiwa himself carried out). Kuroiwa knocked Ayabe unconscious shortly after he left a meeting with Yagami at Bar Tender, used his gun to shoot Shintani dead, and returned the gun to Ayabe before he awoke on a park bench, unaware of his gun's use in a killing. When the rifling on the bullet was traced back to Ayabe, Ayabe was arrested and charged with "the Mole"'s killings. Yagami, a disgraced lawyer, reluctantly made a return to the courtroom to defend Ayabe. With the help of his friends Kaito, Fumiya Sugiura, Issei Hoshino, and Toru Higashi, he was able to incriminate Vice-Minister for Health Kaoru Ichinose in ordering Kyohei Hamura to have Shintani murdered, while, after Kuroiwa was shot by the police while attempting to kidnap Shono, he was established to have been "the Mole." Ayabe was promtptly reduced from prison, whiel the AD-9 conspiracy was unearthed at his trial.