TOKYO (TR) – Tokyo Metropolitan Police have arrested a 61-year-old man who admits to stealing bicycle seats in Ota Ward out of “revenge,” reports the Sankei Shimbun (Oct. 3).
Thus far, police have accused Akio Hatori, a part-time worker, of stealing a seat — valued at around 1,000 yen — from a bicycle parked on a road in the Nakarokugo area at around 6:50 p.m. on August 29.
“In the summer of 2018, I had to buy another seat after mine was stolen,” Hatori told the Kamata Police Station. “I then started stealing out of revenge, trying to give others the same feeling.”
Officers later searched Hatori’s residence in the same ward and found 159 bicycle seats.
Hatori became a person of interest in over the theft on August 29 after an examination of security camera footage. In the footage, he was seen pedaling a bicycle with several seats stuffed into the front basket.
