A supposed leader of a gang associated with the Yamaguchi-gumi, his wife and another member were arrested Thursday after they were accused of eating 351 bentos (boxed lunches) over a four-week period without paying.
Kenzo Sato, 62, his wife Itsuko, 53, and fellow gang member Kazuo Jin, 47, are accused of ordering and not paying for lunches from a Kobe delivery bento shop 53 times between July 11 and Aug 10, running up a total bill of 145,000 yen.
According to police, the three have admitted to the charges, and said that they repeatedly told the manager of the shop that they would pay later. They could not be located after Aug 10, and on September 28 the manager filed for damages.
The three were originally arrested for not paying for 600,000 yen worth of stays at a hotel in Miki city.
© Wire reports
35 Comments
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kawabunga
Perhaps the bento manager should fix them one last bento.........with lots of dumplings from China!! Waaa ha ha ha ha!
nath
I thought they ate all those at the same time with a huge group of bosozoku forcing the bento makers to really work overtime, or possibly they were making their own behind the counter.
sharky1
Reminds me of the 2 guys arguing at the cash register about who would pay for lunch...they decided that they would race around the block to settle this....they took off running and never came back...
martyman
Must be nice to have the ability to dine and dash 53 times. Lets do the math, Three people times 28 days times three meals a day equals 252. So they must of had seconds and thirds just visiting 53 times and eating 351 bentos.
PleasureGelf
Ah, imagination runs wild. Would that be a chain gang at a chain restaurant?
fondofj
Haha! I also thought so. The headline gives the scene of a gang of 351 hungry eaters robbing of bento boxes in the shops of the city and flee away.
nath
The headline made me think that they ate 351 lunches at one time, as in the whole gang was there and then everyone ran out! That would have been funny. Heck they could have filmed it and then made enough money off the film to pay for the lunches.
evaganda
DUH!
Blue_Tiger
In other places, if you didn't pay, you'd likely not get the food. Only in Japan......
dolphingirl
Yeah, as others have said--Why did it take so long for the manager to do something? That's a lot of bentos! Were they threatening him? Did they have some kind of arrangement? Bizzare.
biglittleman
They can eat all the free lunches they want in jail.
BBLeo
...between July 11 and Aug 10, ... Why was manager waiting for so long to report this case to police?
LFRAgain
heh!
Hephatsheput
These people offer protection for the bento shop all these years, and the shop owner turns around and does this to them? They kept him safe all these years. That ingrate has a wake up call coming.
animallover
Sounds that the economic crisis affects gang members too. Hope the shopowner gets his money back.
hanadecaka
Foreginers who enter in Japan do crime need finger print and Japanese never do any crime in the world and their own country how they can not pay money for food.
TSRnow
I Guess this is what you get from the saying "The customer is god" (or, The customer is always right.) in Japan.
They never complain until it gets too silly in the end.
thomyorke
Nothing in this story makes any sense. Why would the owner trust these douches to pay and just keep giving them bentos for a month? How do you stay in a hotel multiple times without paying? And what kinda dipwad gang members eat and run? Sometimes nothing in Japan makes any sense :(
smithinjapan
They sound about as tough as the 'Get-along-gang'.
And seriously, what's up with the manager of the restaurant? He waits a month??
LFRAgain
I'm just baffled that it took the restaurant until the 351st bento to start thinking maybe these yahoos weren't going to pay. And even then, they only said something when they cpuldn't find the three, ahem, "gang" members.
Much like not paying for 600,000 yen worth of hotel stays: How does management allow them to stay that long before saying something? I mean, even if the room was a higher-end rate at say, 30,000 yen per night, that's at least 20 days these three camped out in their room without paying. If it were a business hotel, that's more than two months in the room.
Could these three really have been that intimidating as supposed gang members?
combinibento
We all know what Happened in Goodfellas when the bar owner complained to Paulie about his tab not being paid. The mob gutted the place. For this bento owner for standing up for himself but I wouldn't want to be in his shoes when the gangsters come around looking for a "snitch".
nath
Altria, that is exactly the image I got from reading the headline.
Someone has got to make that into a movie.
Sarge
This takes eat and run to new heights.
gogogo
They were obviously selling them.
Altria
The title sounds like the yakuza held a gang lunch and then did a massive diner dash.
351 punks in suits sprinting down the street. That'd be a sight.
tamanegi
"Just put it on my tab!"
I wonder how far I'd get down at the local Hokka Hokka with a line like that!
diggerdog
wow out of all the things you can arrest a yakuza gang for, hahaha
betterdays
By ordedering free food...
kokorocloud
The headline makes it sound like they ate them all at once, hahah. Like wow, I guess they were really hungry! I feel bad for the shop keeper though...
kenchan
seems the recession is hitting even the yakuza gang leaders...
bamboohat
Wow, that yamaguchi-gumi gang is really a tough bunch. Reminds me of that scene from "Repo Man" when the tough wanna be criminal said:
"Let go do some crimes! Lets get sushi and not pay!"
I guess the J-economy is pretty bad when the yaks have to steal their lunch.
thepro
how do morons like this stay alive?
thepro
how do morons like this stay alive?
itshay
Less than 500 yen per bento? Wow, what's the name of the shop...