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Police in Tokyo have arrested a 48-year-old man and his 56-year-old adoptive mother on suspicion of robbing a real estate agent while pretending to inspect an apartment on March 19.
Police said Kazuko Hachinoe and her adopted son Wakana have partially admitted to the charge, Fuji TV reported. They are also being questioned about a similar incident in Tokyo on March 30.
Police said the couple, who are both unemployed, came to Tokyo from Nagoya in a taxi on April 9. However, they got into a dispute with the driver after refusing to pay the 150,000 yen fare and were subsequently detained by police.
According to police, the couple asked a real estate agent to show them an apartment in Koto Ward at around 3:30 p.m. on March 19. When the female real estate agent let them into the vacant apartment, Wakana threatened her with a knife. He stole her wallet containing just 200 yen and her ATM card. The suspects later withdrew 200,000 yen from the woman’s account, having forced her to give them her PIN number. The real estate agent suffered a slight cut to her finger.
The second incident occurred in Edogawa Ward on March 30. A couple asked a real estate agent to show them an apartment. At about 2 p.m., a female employee in her 20s from the agency was showing them an apartment when the man threatened her with a knife and demanded she hand over her cash card and tell them the PIN number. The couple then fled.
Police said the description of the couple given by the real estate agents in both robberies matched the description of the suspects, though they have only been charged with the first robbery so far. They were also identified from personal items left at the first apartment and by an analysis of surveillance camera footage.
Police quoted Wakana as saying they visited “two or three” real estate agents before picking one that had many female employees. He told police he and Kazuko only 1,000 yen on them on the day of the first robbery and that they were desperate for money.
© Japan Today
16 Comments
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PepperLunch
Suprised they caught them so quickly
snowymountainhell
What ‘values’ is this 56yo ‘mother’ trying to teach her 48yo adoptive ‘son’?
How will he possibly care for himself later in life if he doesn’t get an appropriate education now, in his ‘formative’ years. (There may be some additional nefarious schemes at work.)
Kumagaijin
I'm curious as to why the real estate agent gave the perps the correct pin number. Maybe she thought they would return if the pin number was wrong? Hopefully the woman gets her money back quickly from the bank and they don't haggle. I've heard stories.
Darius
OMG, not another one. This seems to be the latest trend.
Michael Machida
Not the most intelligent dogs in the pack.
AMS
''they are both unemployed, and came to Tokyo from Nagoya in a taxi on 150,000 yen fare'' ?
Zaphod
The 180 cm guy and the 150 cm women in pink, right? Well, that was expected.
Jonathan Prin
Did not police obtain confession yet they wanted to go to jail to eat properly ?
Garthgoyle
Is it normal for taxis to do such long drives? They should probably ask for a valid credit card in advanced for such long drives.
kaimycahl
*Kazuko only 1,000 yen on them on the day of the first robbery and that they were** desperate for money. *WOW desperate, an unemployed, and he things the smart thing to do is to go rob someone because of his misfortunes. His adoptive mother went along for the ride and he robs for her, if anything she could made money the "Old Fashion Way" and it would have saved both of them from going to jail. Why pick on working people they need money also.
ushosh123
Ex husband's son from a previous marriage can be referred as adopted? In any case weird story.
Rob-3
I think Nagoya to Tokyo is around 200 miles give or take. Japan doesn't have Uber or Lyft but they do have their own version (I think "DiDi" is one of the newer ones) which we used when we were in Japan back in 2018 and 2019. Since not all taxi services use this, it can take a bit longer for a taxi to pick you up. Example, when we used it in 2018 to pick us up at Haneda airport, it took the driver about 30 minutes to get to us and we had to meet him sort of where the normal taxi and shuttle buses were and we used it again in Tokyo and we had to wait close to 45 minutes. The wait times vary as it depends on the next closest driver that is in the program. But I will say the fare was almost half so it was worth the wait. Otherwise we just hop on the subway :-)
I know you can generally charter a taxi which is usually around 10,000-20,000 yen per hour so maybe they did something similar? Or maybe (and most likely) they gave the taxi driver a bogus story and tricked the driver into taking them to Tokyo.
IDK, either way their plan was going to ultimately fail either by getting caught (which they did) or not getting the payoff they were hoping for - in other words they'd have to rob a lot more than just one or two people in this scheme to make it worth the trip. Most of the real estate agents that I know (in Japan and in the US) carry very little money on them. What little they have is to cover any public parking fees.
But again, knuckleheads like these are often not the brightest... Glad they were caught and that the real estate agent was not seriously injured.