Two men on a motorbike stole a bag containing 12 million yen from a convenience store employee as he was taking the money to the bank on his bicycle in Tokyo's Shinagawa Ward, police said Tuesday.
According to police, the incident occurred at around 5:15 p.m. Monday near Nishi-koyama Station. Fuji TV reported that the 28-year-old employee was taking the weekend's proceeds to a bank to deposit the money in an ATM. The money was in a pouch in a basket in front of him on the bike. He told police two men on a motorbike rode by him, and one of the men snatched the pouch with the money.
The employee said both men were wearing black helmets. Police are examining street surveillance camera footage to try and identify the motorbike by its license plate.
© Japan Today
39 Comments
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Kurobune
Read before commenting. The weekend's proceeds. (second sentence, second paragraph)
erbaviva
he will confess later. Its an inside job.
shonanbb
These cameras are too fuzzy. Land of electronics needs to get better cameras.
Kurobune
Took in 12m over the weekend ? Wow !
thepersoniamnow
I have to admit I'm always shocked by the little ladies and employees walking to or from the bank with money envelops or little handbags that are obviously full of cash. Wouldn't a criminal be overjoyed to know he or she does this every 3rd Tuesday at 10:00? On payday in my old company there was a secretary carrying whole monthly salaries for 25-30 people.
kickboard
They accept up to 1,000,000 yen in one go. Trust me, I've done it before.
Sensato
Some decades ago a person I knew was teaching English to a group of young employees from the branch of a major Japanese bank in Tokyo. During a class, one of the bankers casually boasted that he was often tasked with carting large sums of cash by bicycle to neighboring branches.
Silence ensued, needless to say, as his colleagues obviously couldn't believe his stupidity in nonchalantly revealing this sensitive information.
These days many large cash pickups in Japan are done by armored car, but still as this article shows the practice of shuttling huge amounts of cash around by bicycle is alive and well.
nath
Strange, most banks have money drop shoots for businesses no need for an ATM.
One of the local 7-11 does deposit parts of their profits via the in-store ATM.
Guillaume Varès
Not employing a professional money transport company is just asking to be robbed.
Davnetcat
Security fail. But, they will be caught.
Jeremy Rigby
I wonder if the store is consistently banking that much money or did they suddenly have a weekend windfall!
Jeremy Rigby
Sorry 120,000 hundred yen onagiris or two hundred and fifty every hour for two days! That's amazing!
Mirai Hayashi
12M yen being carried by a guy on a bicycle...really? No common sense!
Kobe White Bar Owner
Inside job or x employee, wont take long.
DiscoJ
I don't believe for a second that this wasn't a set-up. The only question in my mind is whether it was an employee or the owner. I also the 12 million for one weekend suspicious too. ONE weekend, ONE conbini, Koyama. 12 million. No way. That's a misprint or a crime in itself.
Monozuki
I'm gonna hazard a guess that the suspects knew about the convenience store's weekly tasks that an employee takes the weekend's proceeds to the bank on the bike. That means the culprits were once ex-employees of the convenience store or got information from someone who had inside knowledge of the convenience store. And I think the escaped criminals will get busted sooner or later.
Yubaru
ATM? Seeing as how most ATM's only take about 500,000 yen, at the most, in one shot, depositing this much cash is a job by itself.
The owner of this conbini must really, like REALLY trust this employee!
smithinjapan
Why on earth could they not use the ATM in the store?? If they don't have one, why not? This kind of thing is ALWAYS moronic. The person was carrying 12 million yen in a pouch in the bike basket? He was asking for it.
Jeremy Rigby
That's 12,000 onagiris!
gogogo
Someone had to know the times, the bike, the guy, don't know why the police are not looking for an inside person.
Maria
That is unbelievably stupid. In that employee's shoes, I would have really balked at carrying that money.
DiscoJ
Strangerland: It says '12 million' and the 'weekend's proceeds'. That's 6,000,000JPY/day. Now 600,000/day certainly would be reasonable (and about average for a reasonably active conbini according to Chiebukuro).
cwhite
My bad, need to calculate for 12M. 600,000 profit after materials per day is much more like it. After paying for staff and utilities that's not bad. My guess though is that the weekend is when many people pay their bills when the bank and post office is closed.
Tessa
Ugh. This happened to my former boss (a small eikaiwa owner). He was carrying a month's worth of takings in a rucksack, and some chimpira on a bike snatched it off him.
since1981
I'm with smith. Why not make periodic drops using the ATM in the store?
TheGodfather
"I don't believe for a second that this wasn't a set-up"
私も!!
nath
I stand corrected. I was having a moment of bad maths.
nath
What puzzles me why they take their earnings at night-time to the bank here. Next morning would be safer.
Yubaru
Sorry for the misunderstanding, what I meant was that the opening to place the cash only takes about 500,000 yen, it then shuts, counts the bills, opens again, if there are any bills bent or wrinkled they dont get processed, and then repeat and repeat until the 1,000,000.
Ive deposited 2.5 million and had to put it in the ATM in 500,000 yen batches, and while it "accepted" the total, it took a while to put it all in the machine.
Vernie Jefferies
This story is sponsored by ALSOK security.
sensei258
Maybe he just took it himself, and made up the entire story. I bet nothing turns up on the videos.
Goodlucktoyou
If you use the instore ATM there is a 200yen charge for each transaction.12 million will be 2000 yen every weekend. To send an employee on a bike is free. Think about it, that's 52x2000 yen every year, and that was only the weekend takings. What I learnt about this story is, own a combini!!!
nath
It didn't take long for people to start blaming the victim.
I propose we create an equivalent to Godwin's law for blaming the victim. We can call it Strangerland's law:
"As an JT discussion on a crime story grows longer, the probability of someone blaming the victim approaches 1"
cwhite
1.2M yen is nothing for a combini. I've paid bills upwards of 400,000 (multiple ones) at the counter and many people pay their bills as well. As for a profit margin of perhaps 20% that's only 240,000 or 120,000 per day and if a busy store you may have 5-6 part timers on the job. But if 50% is from bills being paid then your looking at just 60,000 per day on a weekend which is nothing. Just scrapping by...
Yubaru
With conbini there is no need to go to the bank or po to pay bills. That's the convenience of them!
nath
Not at all. That's only 600,000/day. Not a huge amount for a combini by any means.
Disillusioned
120 grand in weekend takings? I wonder what his share is? That's if the two motorcyclists are actually real, of course.
So, you are a 28 year old convenience store clerk riding a bicycle to the bank on a Monday afternoon with 120 grand in the basket. Yeah, for sure he got robbed. NOT!
kurisupisu
And I thought Japan was safe.....
some14some
twelve million yen? annual sales amount?!