Motorcycles disguised as a “new type” of power-assisted bicycle are being sold to unsuspecting buyers and making streets unsafe, the Metropolitan Police Department said.

Tokyo police are urging buyers to carefully check the vehicles’ performance and other specifications to ensure they are not actually pedaled electric motorcycles, also known as “mopeds” or “fully electric bikes.”

Riders do not need a license to drive a battery-assisted bicycle. But the vehicles sold are actually electric motorcycles, which can be driven only under a license.

Those vehicles also lacked a rearview mirror and a license plate, which are required under safety standards for running on public roads in Japan, the officials added.

“Motorbikes are in circulation that are disguised as bicycles, as the two types of vehicles are hard to distinguish by appearance,” an MPD official said.

The MPD on March 13 referred to prosecutors five individuals aged between 42 and 58, including the 49-year-old president of a Tokyo-based company that sells bicycles, on suspicion of violating the Unfair Competition Prevention Law.

They are charged with “use of a misleading indication” by labeling pedal-equipped electric motorcycles as “power-assisted bicycles of a new type” on the company’s website.

They were also falsely listed under “Japanese specifications with an assist ratio that conforms to the Road Traffic Law,” the officials said.

The suspects sold 239 such vehicles wholesale to a marketer of motorbike gear.

3 DENY ALLEGATIONS

Officials of the MPD Traffic Investigation Division said three of the suspects, including the company president, denied the allegations, arguing they had no intention to deceive and didn’t know the vehicles failed Japanese safety standards.

The two others have admitted to the charges.

The individuals are suspected of having sold 4,500 or so pedaled electric motorbikes manufactured overseas since 2020 via a major dealership and through other channels. They earned 1.5 billion yen ($9.4 million) in total sales, the officials added.

It was unclear how many may have been mislabeled.

An accident triggered an investigation into the nature of those vehicles.

A pedal-equipped electric motorcycle sold by the company was involved in an accident with a taxi on a metropolitan road in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward in June 2025.

MPD officials said the man who was driving the motorcycle had no driver’s license. He was quoted as telling investigators he believed he was riding a power-assisted bicycle.

He received a summary indictment on charges of unlicensed driving and was fined 300,000 yen.

Tokyo police said a bicycle look-alike can be a motorbike if, for example, it runs automatically without being pedaled or continues to be power-assisted past the legal maximum speed of 24 kph.

They can also be configured with a smartphone app or through other means to exceed the legal assist ratio standard, or can be converted easily, including by installing a throttle, they said.

Driving a vehicle that is not maintained properly and fails to meet safety standards could violate the Road Traffic Law.

A seller “could also be held criminally responsible if it were to market mopeds in a way that is likely to mislead consumers into believing that they are bicycles,” an MPD official added.