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Kanagawa cops make 2 more arrests in nationwide ATM heist

Takahiro Sakuma
Takahiro Sakuma

KANAGAWA (TR) – Law enforcement in Kanagawa Prefecture on Saturday made two more arrests in the coordinated theft of nearly two billion yen from ATMs nationwide in under three hours last month, reports NHK (June 12).

On May 15, Kenji Tsujimura, 29, allegedly used a forged credit card to withdraw a total of 1.9 million yen from an ATM in Yamato City. Meanwhile, Takahiro Sakuma, 30, allegedly used a similar to card to withdraw 500,000 yen in Yokohama’s Totsuka Ward.

The two suspects are believed to have been a part of an international gang of thieves that used forged credit cards with data leaked from a bank in South Africa to steal approximately 1.86 billion yen in 2.5 hours on that day.

The gang targeted more than 1,400 ATMs in convenience stores in 17 administrative districts, including Tokyo and the prefectures of Kanagawa, Aichi, Osaka and Fukuoka.

Two days before their arrest, Tsujimura and Sakuma appeared at a police station to turn themselves in due to the “scary news reports they had seen” about the case.

Police in Tokyo and Aichi had previously arrested three other persons in the case.