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Tokyo: 3 men appearing to be foreigners behind Kabukicho ticket shop theft

TOKYO (TR) – Three men believed to be foreigners are behind to have been behind the theft of more than 4 million yen from a ticket shop in Shinjuku Ward on Wednesday, police said, reports NHK (Oct. 17).

At around 2:00 p.m., one of the men asked a clerk at Access Ticket, located in the Kabukicho red-light district, in English to see a bag inside a display case.

While the clerk’s attention was diverted, one of the other two men then swiped 4.3 million yen in cash and an unspecified amount of foreign banknotes from behind the counter.

A similar incident took place about 1 hour before. In that case, two persons appearing to be foreigners approached a foreign currency exchange counter and spoke with an employee. “Your [advertising] flag is down,” one of them said in English.

Similar to the aforementioned case, the second person went behind the counter and attempted to swipe an unspecified amount of cash while the employee was distracted. However, the fact that the counter area was locked caused the persons to flee empty-handed.

While seeking the whereabouts of the first trio on suspicion of theft, police are also investigating whether the two cases are connected.

Three persons stole more than 4 million yen in cash from a ticket shop in Kabukicho (Twitter)

Shimbashi case

The cases above are the second and third to take place this week.

On Monday afternoon, a man believed to be a foreigner stole 2 million yen in cash from a booth selling lottery tickets in the Shimbashi area of Minato Ward. Similar to the second case in Kabukicho, a female employee left the booth after being told by the man that her advertising flag had fallen.

When the woman returned, the cash was missing. “He seemed to be a foreigner,” the woman told police in referring to the man.