27-05-2025
Osaka police arrest two men in ¥100 million home burglary
Two men have been arrested on suspicion of stealing a safe containing roughly ¥100 million ($702,500) from a company president's home in Osaka Prefecture last year, in a case authorities believe may be linked to yami baito, or shady part-time jobs, according to media reports.
Jo Ochiai, 23, and Takeshi Tamura, 34 — both unemployed and without fixed addresses — were detained on theft and related charges, NHK and other media reported Monday, quoting the Osaka Prefectural Police.
The burglary took place in late August last year at the home of a woman in the city of Sayama, Osaka Prefecture. According to reports, the woman left her residence for about an hour to have lunch, locking only an inner door for ventilation while leaving the outer door unlocked. When she returned, the inner door's lock had been tampered with and a safe was missing.
The stolen safe reportedly contained about ¥100 million in cash and six commemorative coins. Investigators believe the suspects may have had advance knowledge of both the cash and the location of a spare key inside the home, MBS News reported.
Roughly a month after the burglary, Ochiai was arrested in the city of Osaka for a separate hit-and-run incident. During that arrest, officers discovered approximately ¥21 million in cash in his vehicle — with ¥1 million and ¥10 million bundles wrapped in paper bands — believed to be proceeds from the burglary, the report said.
Police later identified Tamura as the second suspect through a review of surveillance footage from the vicinity of the Sayama crime scene. Investigators used a relay-style analysis of multiple security cameras to track the suspects' vehicle and movements.
Tamura, who was out on bail for a separate theft case at the time, was arrested and charged with violating the code of criminal procedure for failing to return to his court-ordered residence.
According to MBS, both men have past indictments for theft involving different accomplices, strengthening police suspicions that they were recruited through a yami baito opportunity. Authorities say such schemes are increasingly associated with decentralized criminal structures known as tokuryū, or 'anonymous and fluid' criminal groups that recruit accomplices on an ad hoc basis through illicit online job postings.
