A 63-year-old man was cut with a knife and robbed of around 100,000 yen on Monday morning while riding in an elevator up to the mahjong parlor he worked at. Police quoted the man as saying his attacker demanded money in a foreign language.
The man, an employee at a mahjong business in a building in Toshima Ward, got in the elevator at about 9.30 a.m. and was heading up to the 4th floor to open for the day, when another man got into the elevator on the 2nd floor and threatened the employee with a knife. The pair struggled and the employee was cut in his stomach and on his hands. The attacker ran off with a bag the employee was holding, containing some 100,000 yen.
The assailant has been described as a thin man between 40 to 50 years old, about 160 cm tall, and was wearing a black top.
© News reports
22 Comments
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tokyokawasaki
Typical. Just typical...
betterdays
CLASSICAL!!
bushlover
[Typical. Just typical...] --- What the report of a fact makes them xenophobic? Or is it really you that is gaijinophobic?
some14some
known enemy or insider job, just guess and move on....!
stirfry
if it was a foreign language how did einstein know it was a demand for money ?
S7ro9kGm3aQ
There's definitely some flawed logic to this sentence.
OgieDoggie
Las Vegas usually has guards escorting the money vendors in the casinos, maybe this place should take a page from their book on not letting employees carrying large sums of the company's money by themselves.
chinpira
if it was a foreign language how did einstein know it was a demand for money ?
Good point... so even though he was holding a knife in a threatening manner you think he might have been saying "HEY! IT SURE IS COLD OUTSIDE, YEAH?!?"..... or maybe he was shouting "HEY, SOMEONE SUPERGLUED THIS KNIFE TO MY HAND, CAN YOU HELP ME?!?".... Would be interesting to see how you would have coped in this situation...
Disillusioned
What foreign language? Ther are only the better part of a thousand languages and three or four thousand dialects to chose from. Unless of course the robber was from New Guinea, in which case it may have ben the first time a Japanese person had ever heard the language. If the language is so foreign how did they old bloke know he was asked for money? Possibly, the robber was an Okanowan. They speak a very foreign language.
cliffworks
what a great advert for my english school - learn foreign language now, to identify lingo gaijin criminals are speaking! I will teach you how to underatand in 6 languages: Gimme Yo Money, Hands Up, I'm Robbin You Sucker, and throw in Yo' Mama for free. For additional fee I'll teach you how to reply to above in 6 languages.
dolphingirl
What bothers me is the use of the overgeneralized words like 'foreign' and 'foreigner'--You would think they would try to narrow it down a bit. The fact that they just lump everything and everyone who is non-Japanese into one category is quite ignorant.
Wakarimasen
Wasn't much money either - foreigners are obviously cheap as well as dishonest.
m5c32
Sounds fishy. Foreign language. Let's guess: he was between 170 and 190cm. he was kinda green-black-white-vermilion. Kinda fat-thin-obese on the fit side. Oh, just spit it out, it was an inside job.
almondjoy
hahaha, you could be deaf and half blind and know you're about to be robbed. the "foreign language" thing is just a fact.
but did the elevator make it to the 4th floor...
smithinjapan
Victim: He DEMANDED money in a foreign language! I was so scared!
Police: I see... what did they look like?
Victim: FOREIGN! Maybe Chinese or from England.
Police: So how did you know they demanded money?
Victim: .... eeettttooooo
Police: Anyway, we have no doubt you are correct. ALL crime in Japan is committed by foreigners, particularly Chinese and Brazilians. Shall we say they were speaking Portuguese?
Victim: YES YES! It was DEFINITELY Portuguese!
Police: So what happened after you were injured?
Victim: Nothing... we both just avoided eye-contact and rode the elevator to its destination, where I asked him to not hit any internal organs. Errr.... I mean, where he slashed me.
Police: Anything else?
Victim: Yeah... that Japanese song 'Girl from Ipanema' was playing in the elevator.
Jbizzle
lol@cliffworks
this is ridiculous. If the guy was foreign, what race was he? Brazilian, philipino, black, white? What?!? didn't say he was wearing a mask right? Unbelievable they would take this guy seriously.
animallover
Most elevators are equipped with surveillance cameras.It can be checked out if the guy was reallyy attacked or it was a self inflicted injury...
cuddles2009
Id check the mahjong employee first to see if he is not in some financial difficulty, like owing the yakusas protection money.
did this attacker wear a mask or not, between 40 - 50 that narrows it down.
And 9:30am wow and no one around at that time, when I lived in Japan I was hardly EVER alone, especially given the population of Tokyo.
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!! Here fishy fishy?
NetteMarie
LOL cliffworks, brillant!
It is strange that they never describe anyone in Japanese crime articles.
However, I have never heard a Japanese person describe another Japanese person, besides he has black hair, black eyes and is an average height.
You think it would be easy to describe what the foreign person looked like more than description of the language.
smithinjapan
NetteMarie: "You think it would be easy to describe what the foreign person looked like more than description of the language."
I'm not defending this guy, as I think it's an inside job if not simply he being the criminal himself, but it's only 'easy' to describe what a 'foreigner' looks like if they are NOTICEABLY foreign. As much as many Japanese I know like to think they know the difference between a Korean and/or Chinese person's face and a Japanese face, they don't. Then of course you get into people from other nations but of Asian descent, etc.
bushlover
And if he said he looked Thai you'd all be on here calling him a racist. So willing to claim the Japanese person reporting is being dishonest. You seem to be very selective in who you believe. This only reflect on your own personalities. Being Foreign covers a wide spectrum and could be all this gent can offer really. Many other nationalities just like Japanese can understand the word "money" in English and I guess the knife would back it up that it was a robbery. Well let's see if there is any surveillance footage. Or is there a problem with "BIG BROTHER" in this incident?
johnnyboy73
This story seems like a lie. Police should investigate this man. I find it hard to believe there was no one else around at that time. I think he may have stolen the money.