November 13, 2001 Drug Possession
Osaka
The Osaka Public Prosecutor's office today began proceedings against a twenty-nine year old unemployed Tokyo man on charges of violating Japan's laws against the possession of amphetamines and hashish. The defendant is a bandmate of entertainer Issei Ishida, himself recently found guilty of hashish possession.
According to charges filed with the court, the defendant was injecting amphetamines at his home on October 24. He was found in possession of .14 grams of amphetamines and .7 grams of hashish.
Tokyo
Metropolitan Police Department officers placed under arrest a twenty-seven year old Aichi Prefecture man today on suspicion of illegally modifying and selling handguns. According to their investigation, the man modified model guns and put them up for auction via the internet. A fellow Aichi man is already in custody and facing trial for having bought one of the weapons for a reported 16,000 yen on March 30. A forty-four year old Osaka customer didn't fare as well. His winning bid in an April 10 auction was 81,000 yen.
The suspect touted his illegal wares as being able to shoot through aluminum cans and able to penetrate 5mm thick boards. The self-styled gunsmith is an employee of a spring manufacturer and is said to have modified some of the machinery at his workplace to produce his own gunpowder-filled cartridges for the weapons.
Tokyo MPD tests revealed that when fired at a range of 5cm these homemade bullets were capable of piercing three 12mm thick cedar boards.
Tokyo
Detectives of Tokyo's Metropolitan Police Department today placed under arrest a fifty-six year old medical doctor along with three others on suspicion of fraud. The four are said to have duped the wife of an acquaintance of the physician out of a total of over 300 million yen by telling her the money was going toward the construction of a fictitious nursing home. A portion of the money came from a life insurance settlement. The four are charged with having deceived the woman on two separate occasions, the last being in June of 1995.
Kawaguchi City, Saitama Prefecture
The staff of a local love hotel found that the occupants of one of their rooms had left behind more than the usual mess. Shortly before noon today the hotel telephoned police to inform them of the presence of a female corpse. The woman showed signs of having received a blow to the back of the head.
Police determined the woman had died as a result of foul play and established a headquarters to handle the investigation. Their work was greatly simplified this evening when a forty-nine year old man turned himself in for the crime. He is being held and investigated on suspicion of murder.
Sayama City, Saitama Prefecture
A thirty-eight year old woman was arrested by officers of the Sayama Police Department on suspicion of murdering her two daughters. The girls, ages 8 and 6, were discovered burned to death in the family's car on the banks of the Iruma River. It is believed the mother originally intended to die with her children.
According to the police investigation, the mother placed her daughters in the car at approximately 11:50 p.m. on the evening of November 16th and then set fire to the vehicle. The woman sustained burns on her face and was treated at a local hospital. She was released at about 3:00 a.m. on the 17th. The elder daughter was a second year student at a public elementary school in Sayama. The younger daughter was enrolled at a day care center.
The woman's husband, a thirty-nine year old company worker, was away from home the evening of the 16th when the woman drove away with the two children at approximately 8 p.m. It is believed that the mother was distraught over the prospect of entering her younger daughter in elementary school at the beginning of the coming school year. The girl had a cognitive disorder which had been discovered about 5 years previously.
Sendai City, Miyagi Prefecture
Two 18 year old high school girls were arrested on suspicion of having falsified official change-of-address forms at Sendai City Hall in order to facilitate selling a stolen car. The two girls, both of Sendai's Izumi Ward, were taken into custody along with a 17 year old high school girl from Kurokawa-gun. All three are being investigated for fraud. The arrest of the three brings to five the total number of suspects taken into custody on this case.
November 19, 2001 Grand Theft Auto
Motegi Town, Tochigi Prefecture
Farmer Takashi Ojima's neighbor went out in the pre-dawn hours to catch the Leonid meteor shower, and ended up catching a would-be car thief as well. At about 3:00 a.m. Ojima (50) received a phone call from the neighbor reporting a suspicious person walking around Ojima's car with a flashlight. Ojima and the neighbor rushed out and caught the man just as he got into the car. They held Masao Okamura, an unemployed 62 year old of undetermined address, until police arrived. Officers of the Motegi Police Department arrested Okamura for attempted theft.
November 20, 2001 Child Prostitution
Sayama City, Saitama Prefecture
The 36 year old operator of a private kindergarten in Yokohama was arrested along with a 31 year old Saitama City company employee on suspicion of violating the law prohibiting child prostitution and pornography by paying girls to engage in lewd acts.
The two say they met through an online site specializing in what is euphemistically known as "compensated dating". Police investigators believe there may be other incidents involving the two and are following up leads.
November 21, 2001 Negligent Manslaughter
Setaka Town, Fukuoka Prefecture
Papers charging the driver of a large truck with negligent manslaughter were sent to the Kurume branch office of the Fukuoka public prosecutor's office today. Charges stem from a June accident on the Kyushu Expressway in which the man's vehicle ran out of fuel early on the morning of the 15th. The driver, a 53 year old resident of Miyazaki City, pulled his truck to the side of the roadway and turned on his parking lights. His truck was struck from the rear by another truck. The 19 year old driver of the second truck (also a Miyazaki City resident) was killed in the accident, along with his 47 year old passenger.
The driver of the first truck had failed to set out the mandatory reflective triangle at the time of the accident and admits to having entered the expressway knowing that he was dangerously low on fuel. He is charged with negligence leading to the accident and to the deaths of the second truck's occupants.
Police determined that the driver of the second truck failed to pay sufficient attention to the road ahead and also sent papers to the prosecutor's office charging him with the negligent manslaughter of his passenger.
(Yes. The police formally charged a dead man with negligent manslaughter.)
Utsunomiya City, Tochigi Prefecture
An unemployed 44 year old resident of Utsunomiya's Nishihara-cho called an ambulance for his one and a half year old son at approximately 1:40 p.m. today, saying the child was having convulsions. The fire department ambulance crew transported the child to a local hospital where it is unconscious and in serious condition. The child's mother is the man's 25 year old live-in girlfriend.
In response to police questioning, the man admitted to having struck the child and was immediately placed under arrest. Further police interrogation led to suspicion that the father had kicked the boy in the chest and struck him in the head with a hammer at about 1:30 p.m. The man reportedly said his reason for striking the child was that the toddler was being a nuisance by clinging to him. He admits to kicking his son, but claims that the blow from the hammer was accidental.
November 23, 2001 B&E, Armed Robbery
Nagoya City, Aichi Prefecture
A Nagoya orthopedic surgeon and his family got a rude awakening at approximately 2:35 this morning. Two thieves broke into his combination residence-clinic and held the fifty-two year old doctor and his wife and son at knife point, threatening to kill them and torch the home with gasoline unless given money. The doctor turned over his wallet along with a cashbox, after which the thieves bound the three family members with wire and made good their escape via a ground floor window. The doctor's forty-two year old wife sustained minor wounds to her mouth and legs, as did the couple's eighteen year old son. The thieves made away with 500,000 yen.
Police investigation of the scene revealed that the two gained entry by climbing a ladder and breaking a second story window. The victims describe one of the men as being about fifty years old and dressed in dark blue, while the other thief was a young man. Both were wearing dark blue caps.
November 24, 2001 Insurance Fraud, Murder
Koriyama City, Fukushima Prefecture
Sixty-three year old milkman Morio Yasuda and fifty-two year old Minoru Watanabe, already in police custody for suspicion of robbing and murdering a local garment salesman, are now drawing fresh attention from detectives for their suspected involvement in the June death of an elderly Tochigi Prefecture woman. The woman died in what appeared to be a traffic accident, but there are indications she may have been murdered as part of a life insurance scam. Officers of the Koriyama Police Department today moved to execute search warrants on related locations in both Tochigi and Fukushima Prefectures.
Reportedly, Yasuda and Watanabe have made statements to detectives indicating they have killed several other senior citizens in order to collect life insurance payouts. Police re-arrested the pair this afternoon and plan to track down their involvement in other deaths.
Based on police investigation to date, it appears that the two killed Miyoko Nakajima, a 77 year old Tochigi woman, by running over her with a car as she made her way across a crosswalk in Iwaki City, Fukushima on the evening of June 24. Nakajima died of her injuries early the next morning. Investigators believe the men planned the crime and that Yasuda was the wheelman in the killing.
Yasuda and Watanabe have been in police custody since November 2, when they were arrested along with Miyo Yanaginuma in connection with the September 21 robbery and murder of sixty-three year old garment salesman Katsushige Umino. Yanaginuma is a fifty-four year old unemployed woman. The three are alleged to have taken Umino to an abandoned house where he was suffocated by placing a bag over his head. The three, all reportedly in debt, are then alleged to have used Umino's ATM card to withdraw approximately 700,000 yen from the murdered man's bank account.
Nakajima's fate may have been sealed by the unwitting Umino. It was he who had introduced her to Watanabe, who then took out a 3.9 million yen insurance policy on the woman. Suspicion of involvement in her death arose when it became known to police that Watanabe was the one who had invited Nakajima to visit Iwaki City for sight-seeing. Also, Yasuda is reported to have said to an acquaintance, "I ran over her twice."
Subsequent policy inquiry in the case shows that Yasuda and Watanabe kept a Tochigi apartment where Nakajima lived together with two other seniors, none of whom had relatives. There are also indications that the pair may be involved in the life insurance scam murders of at least one other elderly person. Four women are also believed to have some connection with the crimes and are currently the subject of police scrutiny.
Miyazaki Prefecture
Prosecutors formally filed charges with the Miyazaki District Court today against a fifty year old man in connection with the October 24 robbery and murder of fifty-six year old Noriko Doi. The defendant is also charged with illegally disposing of the woman's corpse. Doi was an employee of Miyazaki's prefectural museum.
Papers filed with the court allege that the defendant, Maehara, entered the victim's home at about 2:20 a.m. on the 24th for the purpose of robbing Doi. The victim lived by herself in a home next door to that of the defendant. Prosecutors believe that Doi was strangled by Maehara with an electric cord after she awoke and discovered Maehara in the process of robbing her home. Maehara made away with 32,500 yen and Doi's credit card. Soon after the crime, the cards were used to withdraw 200,000 yen from cash dispensers. Doi's body was discovered inside her car, which was abandoned in a mountain forest.
Tokyo
A woman (59) despondent over the financial woes placed on her family by the medical costs of her husband's mother succeeded in the murder portion of a murder-suicide and was placed under arrest for the death today. The victim (68) was a career police officer who had served as Chief of Police for the MPD's Machida station prior to his retirement.
Investigation reveals that the former police chief was strangled by his wife during a stay at a hotel in Tokyo's Odaiba area on the evening of November 21. The victim's mother, who had formerly lived with the couple, is a resident of a nursing care facility. Worries over heavy medical expenses of approximately 150,000 per month are said to be behind the failed murder-suicide.
Tokyo
High-tech saved the day for a careless jewelry shop worker from Kofu City, Yamanashi Prefecture. The 35 year old man was transporting about 100 million yen worth of gaudy baubles in two bags and left them unattended on the overhead baggage racks in a bullet train while he stepped onto the platform of Tokyo Station to buy something to drink. He returned to his seat to discover that someone had relieved him of the heavy burden of looking after the valuables entrusted to his care.
The man alerted police at about 10:35 a.m. and officers were able to locate the bags roughly one hour later in the possession of two foreign men standing in front of a station some 15 kilometers distant from the scene of the theft. A remote tracking device installed in the jewelry transport bag by a security company was the key to locating the missing valuables. The two foreigners were arrested for the theft.
November 28, 2001 Copyright Piracy
Kyoto
The high-tech crimes unit of the Kyoto Police today arrested two young men on suspicion of violating the copyright law by sharing copyrighted files between their computers via P2P (peer-to-peer) file exchange software. Arrested were 20 year old vocational school student Imanishi Takaaki and a 19 year male college student of Tokyo's Suginami Ward.
The arrests are said to be the first of their kind in Japan. The initial complaint was filed by America's Adobe Systems.
November 29, 2001 Auto Theft Ring
Saitama Prefecture
Five Malaysian men received an official visit from Saitama Prefectural Police detectives bearing arrest warrants today. The five are said to have been operating an auto theft ring specializing in breaking the cars down and selling the parts overseas. They are suspected in the thefts of 130 cars between March and October of this year and are believed to have netted several hundred million yen from the illicit sales.
Miki City, Hyogo Prefecture
A 51 year old Himeji City man won't have to worry about where his next meal is coming from for quite a while; he's going to be a ward of the state. While details have yet to be finalized, it is believed the government will offer the man a room without a view in recognition of his work in kidnapping 7 year old Kondou Naito yesterday.
The boy, a first grade student at Miki City's Bessho Elementary, went missing on his way home from school yesterday. A call to the boy's family for five million yen in ransom money was received the same day. Officers of both the Hyogo Prefectural Police and the Miki Police Department cooperated in rescuing the boy and nabbing his captor at a Himeji parking area at about 1:20 p.m. today. The boy was unharmed in the incident.