Posts Tagged ‘crime’

Foreigners spotted near scene of attempted murder

An NTV report about an incident that took place last month in Mushashimurayama City, Tokyo:

On August 13th at around 11:30PM, a woman riding a moped collided with a rope that had been strung across a road. She was thrown to the ground and suffered serious injuries, including a fractured skull. Police are treating the incident as a case of attempted murder.

According to locals, a group of 3 or 4 “suspicious young foreigners” spotted in the area shortly before the incident.

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Foreigner feigns ignorance of Japanese to avoid speeding ticket

A clip from yesterday’s “Real Time News” in which a police officer in Kanagawa prefecture stops a Mercedes Benz that was traveling at 128 km/h (80mph), 58 km/h over the speed limit:

The driver of the car is a foreigner, and when the Japanese police officer starts speaking to her in Japanese, she pretends she can’t understand and speaks English. The officer cannot speak English and isn’t quite sure what to do. If he were to give up and wave off the foreigner without a ticket, his action would be caught on film and he would no doubt end up like the Tokyo police officer who resigned in shame recently for failing to enforce the law in a similar circumstance.

The officer continues to speak in Japanese to the woman. Eventually he notices that she seems to understand what he is saying, so he suggests that she can actually understand Japanese. She finally caves and and admits she can speak “a little” Japanese. He then informs her of that driving 128 km/h in a 70 km/h zone is a grave speeding offense that will result in a suspension of her license. The woman is shocked, so shocked that she suddenly develops the ability to speak enough Japanese to make the accusation that, “this country doesn’t treat gaijin like humans.” The officer says he is not treating her in such a way.

She starts to cry and say (in Japanese) that she will kill herself. The officer calms her down, tells her to drive carefully, and sends the woman away with a ticket. The woman will have a chance to dispute the ticket in court. Hopefully the judge will have a chance to see the video footage of the incident and get a look at how she tried to weasel her way out of taking responsibility for her violation of the law.

I don’t believe this woman’s action to be an isolated incident. I’ve met quite a few foreigners who swear by the “I don’t speak Japanese” method of avoiding traffic tickets, and anecdotal evidence across the internet seems to support the claim that this kind of thing is very common. When police officers are not on camera, many prefer to let foreigners off without a ticket instead of going through the hassle of dealing with the language barrier.

Note: This is just a short clip from a segment that included several other lawbreakers, all of whom were Japanese. Its primary focus was not on foreign criminals.

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Foreign criminals use slight of hand to rob Japanese stores

Mainichi reports on a series of crimes hitting Kansai:

The foreign thieves follow a set modus operandi, asking shop clerks to show them a number of 10,000-yen notes, returning most but pocketing some of the bills with sleight of hand. In Osaka Prefecture, there were 14 such cases between Aug. 21 and Sept. 1, with the thieves stealing around 1.1 million yen.

According to police, one such heist took place in Osaka city’s Naniwa Ward, where two foreign-looking men in their 30s entered a hardware store and requested to see 10,000-yen bills with serial numbers beginning with SS. The men looked over a number of notes and quickly returned them. It was only later that the shop clerk noticed that 40,000 yen had gone missing.

In a similar case in Akashi, Hyogo Prefecture, a man entered a drug store on Sept. 2 to buy some sweets. At the cash register, he asked to see the 10,000-yen notes in the register. When the shop clerk opened the register the man grabbed a handful of 10,000-yen bills. The clerk demanded he return the money, and the man did so. Later, however, it was discovered that the day’s receipts were 120,000 yen short.

It is quite bizarre that the store clerks granted the requests and allowed the men to inspect the cash.

Update: Here is a clip from TBS’ “The News” in which there is a reenactment of the store clerk handing a pile of cash to the foreigner:

Unlike the previous clip that contained the vague description of “foreign looking” criminals, this one states that they appeared to be from East Asia. In the most recent thefts, which took place in Fukuoka, the criminals used broken English and gestures to ask for an “SS collection” of 10,000 yen bills. The shop clerk, believing them to be foreign tourists who wanted to collect Japanese money, politely handed over money for their inspection. As in the other cases, it was only hours later that he realized the foreigner had secretly collected some extra money.

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Stealing a taxi cab in Japan

A video from NTV news of a man stealing a taxi in Osaka:

The video comes from security cameras set up inside the car. Apparently the vehicle was left with its keys in the ignition, so all the criminal (35-year-old Hiromori Kim) had to do was smash the window, open the door, and drive off. The taxi driver, who was probably having a smoke nearby, shouts and chases after his vehicle. After recklessly driving a safe distance away, the thief searches the car and finds some cash. Kim was later arrested. Police believe he may have been involved in other thefts.

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