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Kanagawa prefectural police plan to send papers to prosecutors on a postal worker in his 60s who kept about 24,000 undelivered letters and parcels at his home. Police said the man, whose name has not been released, faces a charge of violating Japan’s Postal Act.
The man, who worked at Japan Post’s Seya Branch in Yokohama City, has since been fired, Sankei Shimbun reported. The incident came to light after an internal check last November, Japan Post said. At that time, the man admitted not having delivered thousands of letters and packages. Japan Post filed a criminal complaint with police on Jan 14. Police then searched the man's residence.
The charge specifically refers to 1,002 items the man hid at his home and elsewhere between February 2017 and November last year, Kyodo News reported.
According to Japan Post, the suspect was employed to deliver mail from 2003 until his retirement, but was rehired and worked until mid-November last year. During those 16 years, he is accused of continuously hiding thousands of undelivered items at his home.
On Jan 20, when questioned about the hoarded pieces of mail, the suspect, who lives in Sagamihara, told the branch office, “I couldn't be bothered delivering them.”
© Japan Today
18 Comments
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starpunk
That all sounds good in theory but what if some of the items were medications that expired long ago, or if the addresses had new occupants? A huge shake-up in the postal district is due, this kind of neglect is totally obscene.
shogun36
So.............will everyone finally get their mail delivered to them?
The very least they could do is send all 24k items to their original expected destinations.
Free of charge of course.
Aly Rustom
Oh ok...WHAAA???
sir_bentley28
All signs of nothing is going to happen. Read between the lines.
kurisupisu
The increasing age of workers and a diminished sense of responsibility-the future of Japan looks to be radically different...
Do the hustle
Love that excuse. What a complete nutter!
therougou
So it took them 2 months or so of meetings before they decided to file a criminal complaint. No wonder the bumbling idiots didn't discover this earlier.
Alex Einz
24000 non deliveries, thats a bout 5 or so per days if you take in count he had some days off.
and nobody seriously suspected a thing for 16 years?
that whole branch should be shut down and managers sent to jail and everybody that suffered better be reimbursed.
starpunk
Then why was he in the job in the first place? You might think something was wrong long before now. this is a total dereliction of duty.
that person
This became a great article as soon as I read his reason for not delivering the mail.
Perfect.
serendipitous1
He'll be in trouble if he gets sentenced to 1 month in prison for every undelivered letter (=2,000 years!).
theFu
In some parts of the world, the postal deliveries are scanned with images sent electronically to the delivery addresses.
Did Japan ever fix their funky, out of order, street addresses?
Bugle Boy of Company B
Yup. He should have just got a small burn bin and destroyed the evidence. It would be super easy.
hobart_mark
Idiot! That simple.
N30N0M3N
Yet another "adult" Japanese male acting like a teenager.
Alex Einz
haha brilliant... tbh, I am more concerned that for 16years he was constantly suspected of doing so but his management done nothing.
they should be fired.