Mainichi is reporting that a panty thief has been captured in Nagoya. Apparently the 50 year old man had over 1700 articles of womens underwear in his garage. He admitted that he has been responsible for 250 incidents since 1990. Considering the fact that he had stolen 67 items of underwear in his latest break-in, he probably stole a lot more than 1700 panties. Maybe he only kept the best undies for himself, disguarding the ones that were too clean/boring?
Anyway, here’s the article:
Police nab accused panty thief, seize 1700 items
NAGOYA — A 50-year-old man accused of stealing woman’s underwear was arrested Friday, with police seizing about 1,700 pieces of underwear and other items from a garage he used, law enforcers said.
Some of the underwear found in his garage.
The man, Hideki Aoki, was arrested on suspicion of theft. He has reportedly admitted to the allegations.
“I was responsible for around 250 incidents from 1990,” he was quoted as telling police. “I haven’t been able to talk to girls since I was a student, so I became interested in underwear.”
Investigators accuse Aoki of smashing a window to gain entry to a 43-year-old female office worker’s home in Midori-ku, Nagoya, at about 6:30 p.m. on April 11, then stealing 67 items of underwear.
When police searched the garage listed as Aoki’s place of work, they reportedly found about 1,700 pieces of underwear and other items.
Aoki had cased out apartments where he committed the thefts and pressed the intercoms at doors to check that no one was home before going in to steal items, police said. He reportedly committed the thefts while driving around eastern Nagoya and the Aichi Prefecture cities of Toyota, Nisshin and other areas on business. (Mainichi)
Nintendo DS will help you pass the TOEIC test(and Viagra labels).
I’ve been really impressed by Nintendo recently. Instead of creating more games featuring cartoony marios playing sports, they have branched out, attempting to get adults to buy the Nintendo DS. A series of ‘brain-training’ games have been released in Japan, aimed at getting adults to quiz themselves in various topics such as math, foreign languages and trivia (as a means of keeping their brains healthy?). Their latest effort has turned the Nintento DS into a kanji dictionary/english dictionaryt(The Commercial: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YyARzYJ9qqY). It seems pretty cool, using the stylus to write kanji and look up words, but I think I’ll stick with my electronic dictionary for now.
Ever wonder how to neatly fold a t-shirt in seconds? I never have, but I think this Japanese TV clip is pretty cool.
The Mangyongbong-92, a North Korean ferry, arrived in Niigata today. The ferry makes several trips between North Korea and Japan each year, and is one of the few direct links between North Korea and the free world. The Mangyongbong-92 is allowed to dock in Japan despite the fact that North Korea has an openly hostile relationship with Japan. The fact that hundreds of Japanese police were mobilized to ensure the safety of the ferry and its crew made it clear that a lot of people in Japan do not like North Korea(Over 100 ultranationalist loud-speaker trucks have shown up in Niigata to welcome the North Koreans with a barrage of anti-North Korean speeches).
The ferry
The ferry visits Japan for the sake of the many North Korean passport-holders who currently reside in Japan. Most of these North Koreans have lived in Japan for several generations and are decendants of Korean laborers who were living in Japan at the end of World War 2. All Koreans living in Japan at that time were given the option of returning to one of the Koreas or claiming North or South Korean citizenship and remaining in Japan. Since Korea was technologically and industrially backwards at the time, many of the Korean laborers chose to remain in Japan. North Korea, with a better industrial infrastructure and inspiring leadership, was the preferred country of citizenship for most of these Koreans. Since then, North Korea’s popularity has declined, and today only about 35% of the 610,000 Korean residents in Japan claim North Korean citizenship. The Japanese government isn’t entirely sure how to deal with them, so they are allowed to set up their own schools, universities, and businesses without much interference from the authorities. They are also allowed to travel back and forth between Japan and North Korea, often using the Mangyongbong-92.
Japanese North Koreans welcome the ferry into Niigata harbor.
It might seem strange that North Korea would allow some of its citizens to travel back and forth between North Korea’s brutal oppression and Japan’s open prosperity, but there is a very good reason to allow it; foreign currency. The North Korean citizens in Japan are one of the biggest sources of foreign currency for Pyongyang, providing hundreds of millions of dollars to the regime each year. One of the major sources of this currency are pachinko parlors owned by North Koreans. It is estimated that 1/3 of the pachinko parlors in Japan are owned by North Korean businesses. Considering the number of pachinko parlors in Japan, it is a huge figure. North Korean citizens in Japan also help send electronics, automobiles and other luxuries back to Korea. Most of the cars driven by Pyongyang’s leadership are Japanese cars(with the company markings cleverly removed). Much of this wealth and material is shipped back to North Korea on the Mangyongbong-92.
Kim’s cash cow
The Japanese authorities have made attempts to stop the Mangyongbong-92 from being allowed to dock in Japan, occasionally banning the ferry’s service for periods of a few months. Extensive safety inspections are carried out on the ship each time it makes a port call in Japan, partly to agitate the Koreans, and partly to find problems that can be used as an excuse to ban the ferry. The Japanese government’s current policy seems to be the acceptance of Mangyongbong-92 as a form of improving relations with North Korea. The ferry might smuggle mission parts and technology back to the North, but the Japanese seem to be more concerned about obtaining info from Pyongyang on the fate of a few kidnapped Japanese citizens. Oh well.
According to today’s WaiWai Column a real estate company in Toyama Prefecture is selling a 15 year-old Japanese castle. The castle was built by a construction company as a reception/party hall, but the company had financial troubles and was forced to sell it off. Now you can be the proud owner of a Japanese castle for the low low price of 41 million yen (about 356,000 dollars)!
The Castle
Park your horses/cars at the gate.
Visit the real estate agent’s site for more info/floor plans!
According to the Yomiuri Shinbun the former president of the Japan Skating Federation embezzled about $78,000 of his organization’s money so that he could send it to a Nigerian internet scammer:
Ex-JSF chief ‘stole 9 million yen’ to pay Nigerian ‘investment’
The Yomiuri Shimbun
The former president of the Japan Skating Federation allegedly embezzled funds to cover losses he ran up as a result of an Internet-based scam, according to sources familiar with the case.
Katsuichiro Hisanaga, 74, resigned from the post in June 2004 ostensibly for health reasons, but in fact due to the embezzlement, the sources said Monday.
Hisanaga used money from a company he had run since 1998 to invest in a fraudulent asset management proposal that originated in Nigeria and which was widely circulated on the Internet.
Due to his losses, he allegedly embezzled about 90 percent of the 10 million yen that N-H-K contributed to the federation’s preparatory fund for the 2003 figure skating N-H-K Cup in Asahikawa, Hokkaido.
After the hole in the federation’s funds was discovered, an executive board member filled the gap with his own money. The executive has reportedly not been repaid.
(Apr. 26, 2006)
Typical Nigerian 419 scammer
Sadly, this story doesn’t surprise me much. The Japanese tend to be a very trusting people, not as aware as they should be of the fact that most people in the world are not to be trusted.
Luckily, most Japanese don’t understand enough English to be scammed by Nigerian 419 spam mails. More commonly they are scammed by “It’s me!” phone call scammers or by “friends” they meet on trips abroad.
The “It’s me!” scam was a huge problem a couple years ago. Elderly Japanese people were falling victim to scammers who would call them up and claim to be relatives in distress. The victims sent large sums of money/access information to complete strangers. Here is an
example of how the scam worked:
Scammer: “Hi, Mom, it’s me.”Victim: “Who’s this?”
Scammer: “It’s me, Mom, me.”
Victim: “…Taro?”
Scammer: “Yeah, that’s right. Mom, I’ve been in a car accident and I don’t have any money. I need you to deposit 2 million yen into my bank account …”
Luckily, after intense media coverage and new safety measures by banks, the scam has become less common. A lot of Japanese people have learned not to send money to random people who call them.
The other well-publicized scam involves Japanese tourists being tricked into smuggling drugs. In these cases, Japanese tourists meet new ‘friends’ while traveling abroad and are tricked into carrying luggage for their friends. These Japanese tourists don’t bother to check the contents of what they are carrying, or even realize the possibility that they could be smuggling drugs. The fact that most foreign police departments do not have translators skilled in the Japanese language doesn’t help either, as in the case of gullible drug smuggler Chika Honda. Honda unwittlingly smuggled large quantities of heroin into Australia after being offered a new bag by a ‘tour guide’ who had discovered that her luggage was damaged. Apparently she didn’t notice that her new bag bag, with secret heroin-ladden pockets, was much heavier than her previous bag.
How can the Japanese combat these scammers? By trusting no one.
