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Police are investigating a man in his 40s, who is a supervisor at the Shinjuku Ward office in Tokyo, on suspicion of theft and embezzlement after he took home the personal belongings of numerous unidentified and unclaimed deceased persons, including cash, credit cards and bank books, without permission from the ward.
According to police, the supervisor is in charge of managing the belongings of the deceased and arranging their cremations, Sankei Shimbun reported on Friday. Unclaimed or unidentifiable bodies are called 行旅死亡人 (deceased travelers) in Japanese.
Upon questioning by police, the suspect explained that he had taken the items home because storing them at the office is troublesome.
The case came to light after another ward office employee contacted police and said the suspect was taking items from corpses.
© Japan Today
16 Comments
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Brian Wheway
Stealing from dead people is never going to make you popular, how low can you sink? did he steal belonging knowing, believing that no one would find out?
Mark
SICK.
Random
Hopefully it’s ‘former’ supervisor at the ward office.
Mocheake
Does this mean that if he had asked the ward office they could possibly have said yes, and, if so, that it would be legal?
Numan
I can see how this could start as convenience like he said and eventually spiral into stealing once he realized that no one noticed.
Bad decision either way!
DNALeri
Ha, what a lame excuse!
Pukey2
What, so now his own home is a warehouse, is it?
Sam_H
Stealing from dead bodies is insane.
obladi
Is stealing from the dead actually worse than stealing from the alive? Please explain to the unoutraged...
Disillusioned
This statement makes sense, kind of. However, if he had used any of the cash or items his arrest is warranted.
Paul14
As an ex police officer I know that a deceased person's money and belongings has a terrible ingrained smell of death affixed to it. Anybody stealing such death stinking materials knows it's wrong just via the smell. A truly horrible thing to do to rob the dead. An earlier poster said is it any worst than robbing the living...it's probably as bad, but if you rob the dead you get the smell. Where and how will you ever enjoy that money and property?
macv
another dirty official that's why Japanese refer to them as tax thieves
smithinjapan
Hey, what was that "Japan is the most honest country in the world" YouTube video? I'll post this on the comments section... and this is only one person who was caught.
mmwkdw
@MARK - totally agree - nothing less than this individual is SICK in his mind and perhaps those whom employed him need to be closely reviewed too, as they too should share some blame.
I feel sorry for those Families that he has trespassed upon (for loss of better words). Is there a "Grave Robbery" Law in Japan ? If so, perhaps he could be prosecuted under such a Law.