TOKYO (TR) – A 59-year-old man spoke poor Japanese in posing as a foreigner during the robber of a convenience store in Minato Ward earlier this month, police said, reports TV Asahi (Sept. 24).
At around 9:30 a.m. on September 10, Kenji Oba, of no known occupation, allegedly wielded a knife inside an outlet of Family Mart. “Everything, everything,” he reportedly said in broken Japanese to a clerk.
Oba then fled the scene with about 560,000 yen in cash.
The suspect surfaced as a person of interest for police after an examination of security camera footage.
“I pretended to be a foreigner,” the suspect told police in admitting to the allegations. “I wanted money to use for my hobbies, including pachinko and [the making of] plastic models.”
About 90 minutes before, Oba is believed to have attempted to rob another another convenience store located about 500 meters away.
In the second case, a male perpetrator held a knife up to a clerk inside an out of an outlet of Lawson Store 100 in the Shibaura area. After the clerk, declined to hand over money, the perpetrator slashed one of his fingers with the weapon.
As he fled, the perpetrator sprayed what appeared to be pepper spray inside the store. Two female customers present at the time were later sent to a hospital with sore throats, police said previously.
