1,590 kgs of newly harvested rice stolen from two Ibaraki farms

Oh dear, I think I know where this story will end up.

With recent price hikes, more and more people stealing for food.

That what happened when you jacked the price up food giants. Hungry people will steal if you starve them long enough

It's rough. My wife's family raises fresh-water fish in the mountains. They do have security cameras installed, but they are not the clearest. And right now, our grandparents and a dog live there to help keep watch. But being in the mountains, it's really secluded. With everyone becoming older, neighbors are becoming fewer. So it becomes harder to protect what you have.

Street scene in night time Tokyo...."Psst...wanna buy some rice ? Good stuff man..."

So sad after a long period of hard work and expense to produce the rice and then have it stolen. Probably no insurance.

Rough. So harsh for someone to do this. That may have been the income for the owners for the next year.

That what happened when you jacked the price up food giants. Hungry people will steal if you starve them long enough

How do you know it was someone hungry? Do you have some ideological belief that people don't steal out of greed?

The rice was stolen by opportunists, not hungry people.

This has nothing to do with hungry people. This is some criminal organization making money.

As noted on similar articles that seem to pop up every season - most likely this rice was stolen to fill "orders" put in by establishments such as middle merchants or restaurants.

The chances of the thieves hawking individual 5 kg packs of rice to customers is pretty low. Easier to detect and be noticed. But it may be eg selling on the internet - but very traceable.

A 1 or 2 times shift of the lot would be more likely.

police need to justify their useless job with those stories... what else

660 kgs of rice worth 143,000 yen 930 kilograms of rice worth 210,000 yen were taken.

216 per kilo and 225 per kilo for koshihikari? Right.

These were very laborious heists. The amounts of rice stolen were very heavy. In all likeliness a truck had to be used by someone with inside information. The suspects must have been n quite strong, unless they used a Unic truck for hoisting during their heisting. Koshihikari is popular the world over, so there is a chance the thieves were foreigners looking to export the rice to Vietnam, Singapore, Canada, etc. Readers should send thoughts and prayers to the poor farmers who worked hard only to be fooled by criminals.

Marc: I think they are 30 kg bags.That how my partner receive their rice from their least land in 30 kg sacks. So the labour is 2 bloke 11 lifts each back and forth for the first lot. Let say 30m from the stack to the truck. I estimate the first lot took 10 -15 minutes to load and in and out. Using the same theory for the second lot is 16 lift each each should take about 20-25 minutes in and out. Why 30 kg ? I think that is the max physical lifting in Japan. plus 660kg at 22 units and 930kg at 31 works out exactly. In total 53 sack @ 30kg. So assume theives will only get 50% value at 50,000 yen each when sold on the black market. If caught will probably 5 years each. Not much value for a long stint. I can make 50,000 yen in 3 days with legal work.

Organized crime.

A local farmer I buy from sells the 30kg Koshihikari at 7000 yens. A very good deal.

I have to agree. Opportunist exploiting a securities weakness. Most likely will sell for half the price.

Not much reward for the risk. Greed is powerful emotion, maybe time we will have an arrest.

Not trying to be racist or anything but whenever this kind of theft occurs in Japan, the thieves are almost always Vietnamese… like the Vietnamese who robbed a peach orchard a while back.

Not trying to be racist or anything but whenever this kind of theft occurs in Japan, the thieves are almost always Vietnamese

In fact, the truth is the thieves are usually never caught. And I suspect the reason is because these are mostly inside jobs.....ie....Japanese farmers robbing themselves for insurance and/or losses to report on tax forms. Or even neighboring farmers and those in farmer organizations who have information about who is easiest rob and when is best to rob them.

I don't know if you have some sort of source for your information, but even if most theives that are caught are foreign, it may simply be that they are easier to catch. It could also be that police are on the take with locals, but not, of course, with foreigners.

Not trying to be racist or anything but whenever this kind of theft occurs in Japan, the thieves are almost always Vietnamese… like the Vietnamese who robbed a peach orchard a while back.

The real issue is not who did the manual lifting or thievery, it is the people who paid for the work to be done. I expect this was, as pointed out above, an inside job or similar locally organized operation. Even if it were Vietnamese or other foreign entities who took the rice, this stinks of blackmarketing and the big crooks are the organizers and/or buyers of the purloined rice. Go after the head of the snake and not its tail.