KANAGAWA (TR) – Kanagawa Prefectural Police have arrested an organized crime member and his girlfriend over the alleged operation of a drug trafficking ring from a parking lot in Naka Ward, reports the Sankei Shimbun (Apr. 10).
At around 11:15 a.m., officers found 470 grams of kakuseizai, or stimulant drugs — with a street value of about 28 million yen — inside 602 plastic bags inside three vehicles parked in a coin-operated parking lot in the Isezakicho area.
Another eight bags found in the vehicles contained 140 grams of marijuana, with a street value of 740,000 yen, police said.
Officers later arrested Junichi Mori, a 44-year-old member of the Inagawa-kai, and Yoshie Togami, his 42-year-old girlfriend, of no known occupation, on suspicion of possession and trafficking illegal drugs. Mori admits to the allegations. Meanwhile, Togami denies the charges, telling police she had been misled about the legality of the substances.
At around 4:00 p.m. that same day, police searched Mori’s residence in Minami Ward and found four bags of stimulant drugs and three bags of marijuana.
The parking lot is located about 20 meters from a police box. In making deliveries to customers, the suspects are believed to have used a bicycle to transport the drugs, which were concealed in a paper bag.
Police also seized more than 1,000 tablets of what are believed to be MDMA, also known as Ecstasy, and 547 unused syringes from the vehicles.
