Blackman's family, wanting to find her, flew to Tokyo and started a high-profile direct media campaign including approaching British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook, who was visiting Tokyo at that time. Newspapers started publicizing Blackman's disappearance on July 13, when UK Prime Minister Tony Blair mentioned the case during an official visit to Japan, where he met with Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori. An information hotline was staffed by British expats, and an anonymous businessman funded a reward of £100,000. As a result of the publicity surrounding the case, three foreign women came forward to describe waking up sore and sick in Obara's bed, with no memory of the night before. Several of them, it turned out, had reported him to Roppongi police but had been ignored. It was also around this time that police made the connection between cases via the man known as Nishita and Obara.