Grand theft fruit.

Theft is relatively rare in Japan, but that’s not to say that the police never come across stockpiles of stolen goods. For example, investigators in Ibaraki recently apprehended a man who was involved in stealing literally thousands of items.

The man hadn’t gone on a shoplifting spree, though. In fact, he didn’t even go into a shop, but has been arrested for the theft of roughly 3,000 pears.

In early August, the Ibaraki Prefectural Police received information that there may be a foreigner without legal permission to stay in Japan who was living inside an out-of-business hotel in the town of Kasama. When investigators went to search the hotel on August 6, they found an unemployed 31-year-old Vietnamese man, and also approximately 1,800 pears of the kosui variety in plastic crates, in addition to a scale, cardboard shipping boxes, and shipping receipts.

When questioned, the man admitted to stealing the fruit from orchards in the town’s Ago district earlier this month. With pear season approaching, many varieties are already edible, but most aren’t at their peak deliciousness quite yet, so farmers are leaving them on the branch to ripen just a little more. That window allowed the man to steal, he said, a total of around 3,000 pears between the early morning hours of August 1 and the early morning of August 2 with the intent to resell them. “I looked for people on social media in the in-Japan Vietnamese community who wanted to buy the pears, and resold them,” said the man.

While pilfering pears may not sound as heist-movie glamourous as targeting diamonds or works of fine art, steal enough of them, like, oh, say, 3,000, and you’re talking some major money, and associated consequences. The total value of the fruit stolen is estimated at about 870,000 yen (US$5,880).

It’s unclear from reports whether or not the man had indeed been in Japan illegally, but grand theft, even of fruit, is something that’s pretty likely to get your residency permission revoked by the immigration department. Investigators are also looking into the possibility that the man wasn’t the only person involved in the robbery (picking 3,000 pieces of fruit in a day’s time quickly enough to not get spotted does seem like more than a one-person job), as well as whether or not there’s a connection to pear thefts that also took place at farms in other Ibaraki cities, Tsuchiura and Chikusei, earlier this month.

Source: NHK News Web, Asahi Shimbun via Livedoor News via Otakomu
Top image: Pakutaso
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