A number of burglaries have occurred in the mountains, targeting isolated houses.
At around midnight on May 14, a woman in her 60’s, living alone in a house in Minami Aizu, Fukushima, was the victim of a robbery. It is believed that there were at least two men speaking broken Japanese.
The woman was restrained with tape and robbed of more than 10,000 Yen in cash, sustaining minor injuries. Prefectural police are investigating the incident as a case of robbery and manslaughter.
The modus operandi is similar to the robberies that have occurred in Tochigi, Nagano and Gunma in last two weeks. They all occurred at night in mountainous areas, with two men speaking broken Japanese and tying up the victims.
They seem to have chosen mountainous areas where there are no security cameras and where they are far away from neighbors.
A crime expert said, “Many houses in mountainous areas have cash at home because there are no financial institutions nearby, but even so, the amount of damage this time was small. It is possible that they used satellite imagery to get an idea of the area, drove around and targeted houses that were easy to burglarize”.
It is believed to be foreign robberies, although it is possible that Japanese people posed as foreigners, as they spoke broken Japanese.
If they are foreigners, it is difficult to investigate because they return home after the crime. Targeting houses in mountainous areas that are easy to break into and easy to escape from, rather than houses with money in the city or countryside, is a new modus operandi, and there is a fear that copycats would emerge.
