A 28-year-old woman from Tochigi Prefecture, who used her dead mother's passport to leave Japan, has been arrested on suspicion of killing her.
Police said Shiho Hashimoto, an illustrator who was arrested on March 24 on suspicion of corpse abandonment, was charged on Thursday with killing her mother Keiko Hashimoto, 54.
The victim’s body was discovered on the balcony of her apartment in Kaminokawa, Tochigi Prefecture. An autopsy showed the woman had died from loss of blood due to several cuts on her head.
Hashimoto was first arrested for violating the Passport Law in February after immigration officials in the UK discovered she was attempting to enter the country using her mother’s passport. She was detained and sent back to Japan.
Police have not yet determined how Hashimoto managed to pass through the security checkpoint at Narita Airport and depart for England.
© Japan Today
20 Comments
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snowymountainhell
A successful save against her illegal attempt on the goal by U.K. screeners. Penalty for Japan’s abysmal screening efforts.
Mickelicious
Japanese passport, so checks are perfunctory.
Not the sharpest pencil in the box.
Mocheake
A month later and they still don't know. Maybe they don't understand the departure procedure at the airport. Some people effed up and didn't match face, name, age, etc to passport holder and let her leave the country.
Mat
Not difficult to work out that the staff were busier checking the passports and fingerprints of the non-japanese travelers.
antifun
The staff do not check the passports of the Japanese citizens as they go through an automated gate. Now we realize that the "face detection" there is bogus. Interestingly, the UK also allows Japanese citizens through automated gates but they were able to detect the difference between the photo and the person using it.
gogogo
Easy to figure out, they just stamp Japanese passports and don't even look up.
shogun36
ooops
Well, two things. Police are useless in Japan and clearly immigration don't give an EFF.
That's 3 strikes....................
konjo4u
Maybe she thought she could make her mother disappear in UK by creating a travel record. If she was on the run it wouldn't make sense to be using the victim's passport.
Mark
NOT the smartest killer by far, only an idiot would attempt a stunt like this, the Q? is does she has a passport of her own?? or was she trying to create a record as others commented.
purple_depressed_bacon
It's nor rocket science. She's Japanese. The border control officers ar Narita probably barely glanced at the photo on the passport before letting her through because you know, she's Japanese. With the mask it's also even easier to deceive them. They only leap into alertness when it's a foreigner.
Seesaw7
She might have gotten away with it if she'd gone to another Asian country
@Lamilly. Why so? You think other Asian countries Immigration Officers are as stupid as you are? Lol. What a silly comment.
Peeping_Tom
"A successful save against her illegal attempt on the goal by U.K. screeners. Penalty for Japan’s abysmal screening efforts."
Rubbish!
Try to enter Japan using a British/American or Chinese Passport to see what happens to you,
A British person exiting the UK on a relative's Passport would most likely succeed too.
Kei Kurono
Thank you UK. Also shame on this women. 10 year Prison will be good for her. Illegal Immigration and emigration criminals foreigners or Japanese deserves no sympathy.
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therougou
She killed someone and you think 10 years is enough?
Peeping_Tom
People talk about her supposedly "illegal immigration" intent.
There are no reported cases of illegal Japanese immigrants in the UK, especially ones involving forged documentation.
I don't think she was that stupid, not for one microsecond.
I believe she was trying to mislead the authorities by creating a trail in the UK, for her now defunct mother.
"Mother" enters the UK, registers at a certain hotel; then goes missing.
She returns to Japan using her real Passport,
Authorities in the UK search (in vain) for someone who's never been here in the first place, while Japanese authorities don't search for someone they firmly believe is on the loose in the UK.
She then can do away with the body properly and no one will suspect a thing.
That's not far-fetched.
Real killers have attempted this sort of stratagem before.
Glad she was caught.
UK9393
kaimycahl
She was illustrating the art of the walking dead
virusrex
There are two problems with this scenario that would still mean this is terribly bad solution.
One, this would create an obvious paper trial that would link her to her disappearing mother.
Two, how is she supposed to go back to Japan? since "she" never entered the UK she would not have a valid visa so she would be detained in her way back anyway.