50: The 300 Million Yen Robbery | Red Thread
01:15:24 Share

More Chumba Casino fan mail. Love this. It says, Dear Ryan, I love Chumba Casino. They're so much fun. I love the wild ride from the social slots to the slingo to jackpots quicker than a six-time real spin. Everybody's finding their fun at Chumba Casino. Why don't you find out for yourself? Head to ChumbaCasino.com and enjoy all

hundreds of casino-style games for free with your welcome bonus. Sponsored by Chumba Casino, no purchase necessary. VGW Group, void where prohibited by law. 18 plus terms and conditions apply. ♪♪♪

It was 56 years ago on December 10th, 1968 when one of the most infamous heists in history took place in Tokyo, Japan. A man dressed in a police uniform stopped a bank transportation vehicle that carried 294.3 million yen. That is $817,000 US at the time or 6 million US dollars in 2023 money.

Wanting to comply with this officer of the law, the workers stepped out of the vehicle. They were patient while this "officer" checked for explosives or anything suspicious, but while he looked under the car, he startled the employees back by setting off a flare. Without the employees close, this man jumped into the car and drove away into the distance with the wards of cash.

He was never seen again despite the investigation involving 170,000 officers and the questioning of over 110,000 suspects. While scaring the workers, this heist was unusual as there was no violence, which has made it even more intriguing for those invested in the case. Millions of yen never to be seen again as despite their best efforts, it has never been solved. This is the

the 300 million yen robbery, and this is The Red Thread. Welcome everyone to this episode of The Red Thread. Today I am joined by the absence of my two co-hosts, my two beautiful boys. They've disappeared, but I am replaced by, instead, in my opinion, far better, my beautiful girlfriend, the writer of our show, basically, throughout the long history of our series,

I didn't talk about this with you beforehand, but did you want to go by any kind of anonymous name or would you like to just... Just call me Kira. Okay, just Kira. This is Kira. Like I said, she's the writer of the show. She'll be filling in for both Isaiah and Caleb today. I apologize in advance. No, you'll do great. I've been training you for the last year for this. You'll do great. So today we're discussing the million yen... Three million. Nearly 300 million. 300 million? 300 million?

Jesus, that is so much. 300 million yen. I mean, yen in general always sounds like way more impressive. A lot larger than what it is. But 300 million yen, that's still a lot of money. So this is Japan's biggest heist, right? Yes. Unsolved heist. Yes, I think it is. And it happened in the 1960s. So it's been a really big case over there for a long period of time. Yeah. Are they still actively investigating it? Well, the Statue of Liberty

limitations is now closed. So I guess anything like they could come out and be like, Hey, I did it. And then nothing could happen. Yeah. That's crazy that the statute of limitations, uh, what, do we even know why that exists?

I don't know. I don't know either. It seems like a loophole. Just if you're good enough to like evade justice for long enough, then you're in the clear. I did that and you never caught me. So that's it, guys. That's so crazy. Yeah, before we start, before we dive too deep into this, though, I did want to just kind of explain we're in a real life set. This is the set that I shoot Real Boys out of. I figured since it's just myself and Kira for this episode,

It made sense to just record it in person. So that's why, you know, this whole Christmas set is here. It's because it's currently December 13th. So this will be coming out in middle of January while we're on our holiday break. Yes, we're in Japan. Yep, me and Kira, Kira and I will be in Japan. My mom always corrects me about that. Every time I just hear a voice in my head whenever I do me and someone else.

Yeah, so we're in Japan at the moment. We're on holiday. We're having the best time. Yeah, it's incredible. We're having such a great time. The amount of heists that we pulled off. Yeah. Yeah, it's incredible. Japan is just ripe for the taking.

Yeah, so we're having fun over there. Caleb and Isaiah are both doing their own things at the moment. So I still want Red Thread episodes to come out a little bit over this, you know, one month break period, basically. So that's why we're recording this in advance. And also, I guess the last week's episode or the last episode of Red Thread will also have been a guest pre-baked episode. But after this, we'll be back to regular scheduled Red Threading episodes.

after January 20th. Yes, you have the lovely Isaiah and Caleb back. Yeah, they'll be back. Or maybe you'll be a fan favorite. Maybe people will want you back. Maybe you'll take my job. I don't know about that. You wouldn't have to try very hard. All right, so. You're my favorite. Thank you. That's very sweet. The 300 million yen robbery. You kind of combed through this a little bit, but we had an additional writer take this one. Yeah, we had some help with this one. Yep.

Yep. So big thank you. He goes by Critical Archive. Yes. Thank you so much. Thank you. But you've also gone through it and kind of extrapolated on some things and done your own research. What in particular did you find interesting about this case? Probably the whole thing. I actually found it really interesting. I don't know. There's something about the fact that it was such a massive heist and there was no violence, no blood, no injuries. Yeah.

Nothing. Isn't that crazy? Like I'm imagining in America, if something of this scale was conducted, like probably like 10 people would have been killed. Even over here, something like there would be violence, but it speaks to the level of like civility in probably like Japanese society where you could just pull this off and there's not a single shred of violence to be found. There was a lot of like threats. We'll go into some things like that happened before the heist, which put a lot of people on edge at the time. Right. But yeah, no violence, nothing.

And, you know, even though millions of yen were stolen, at least everyone's lives were saved, like safe, which was crazy to me. So, um, And so there was, there's never been any like, uh, strong leads, let's say? Uh, there are some suspects that we'll go into that are pretty interesting, but even that story as well, and I don't really want to get into it too much right now because I want to save it for the suspects. Um,

I don't know. Like it's definitely, you know, in the cases that you covered for Red Thread, it's a smaller sort of case, but it's just so interesting. The fact that such a large amount of money was taken, the way it was taken, no violence. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting. I've kind of heard it described as in the small amount of research that I did into it,

Because this will all be fresh for me mostly. But I heard it described as the Japanese D.B. Cooper case. And I'm immediately interested in that because D.B. Cooper was very fascinating. Is that accurate? Run off into the distance and never to be seen again. Yeah. I mean, there's definitely evidence and clues that were left behind. Right. And you'll see there's some instances that

like against maybe the way that the police or investigators looked into the case, you kind of go, oh, okay, maybe that might have compromised some of it. There's one thing I'm thinking of in particular, which I'll mention when I get to it. But yeah, it is interesting how there's so many different

pieces of evidence yet nothing yet no conclusive answer like it's like all the pieces of the puzzle but they just don't fit together it's so frustrating yeah i mean that's the issue with doing red thread is there are so many of these cases we dive into uh all of them really and they all don't have an answer at the end of the day and it's all just speculation how much does that frustrate you when you're researching because i would say you out of all of us definitely uh like

like the most heads down in the research so you're the most connected yeah even like going back to the last case the red the black dahlia yeah I was you know I was going through one suspect one theory at a time and I was like researching the first one oh my god

I believe it. Like this has got to be it. The next one. No, scrap that. I believe this one. And then going between back and forth. You have a Zuma brain. Whatever the most recent one is, that's the one that did it. But yeah, it is. It's like, especially in the Black Dahlia case, you could have made logical arguments for each of them. So much, so much, and so much that we didn't even get to, but crazy. So many suspects in that one.

Okay, so for this one, I guess we'll just do it in the red thread kind of tradition of just reading each chapter and kind of discussing from there. Would you like to take before the robbery or would you like me to start? I can start. Okay. Okay, so...

It was December 6th, 1968, and the manager of the, I will apologize in advance for my Japanese pronunciations, because they will probably be off, but I'll try my best. So what you can do. Kokubonji. Okay. Branch of, how would you say that? Yeah, Kokubonji. Sure. Branch of the Japan Trust. I would probably say that Japan. Please bear with me. You're doing great.

Trust Bank in West Tokyo. And he was going through his mail at the time. In the middle of the usual other post, his hand stopped at something very strange and frightening. It was a letter and it was a mix of handwritten letters and cuts out of magazines made to look like letters. So the Zodiac kind of thing? Yeah, same sort of vibe.

And it was pasted on the page and it contains very specific instructions. Though the full contents of the letter have never really publicly been fully disclosed, we do know that the person behind it demanded that a female bank employee was to bring 3 million yen. So that's

approximately 8,333 at the time, just over 75K. And this was, he specified a female bank employee. Yeah, female banker. Okay. And they were to bring it to an undisclosed location by 5pm the following day. If this wasn't done, they did threaten to blow up the bank manager's home.

So this is a threatening violence. So though no violence actually happened, there was a threat and yeah, it was to their personal homes. Yeah. I mean, realistically, how else would you pull off a heist if not with at least the threats of violence? Like, hey, just, hey, bring me the money. Yeah, just bring me the cash, please. Yeah.

So if this wasn't done, they said they were going to blow up the home. So quickly, the manager contacted the police who actually sent over 50 officers to a drop point to perform a stakeout. Could you imagine 50 officers just casually strolling about? Imagine going out on the street and like it's a busy street. Just casually. Everyone's a police officer on that street. Yeah, even if they're all in just like weird like

Not in uniforms. I feel like it'd be a little bit sus. Like they're all like subtly watching you. And you know, yeah. Yeah. I feel like I'd be able to tell if like everyone on the street was like staking me out. Maybe. I don't know. They could have been like really good at hiding it.

So a female police officer wore a disguise and they dressed up as a bank employee and they all went to the correct location, but nobody actually showed up. So it could have been a hoax or a prank. No one knows. No one knows who was behind the letter that I could see. But so this was before? This happened before. The main heist. How much before? So I think we have written it somewhere here, but I think it was about only a couple of days ago.

Yep. So it was only four days. Four days before. So that's how they connected it? Yeah. Don't know if it was directly to do with the case, but very suspicious because the person who came and stole the truck full of money had the same sort of MO. They said that it was going to blow up. Right. Things like that.

So this was happening during the 1960s. Japan was experiencing a significant period of social and political unrest, but large-scale violent demonstrations were not really common at all. The letter and later the robbery were exceptional at the time, not only because of their execution, but because they stood out in a society where violent crime was and remains pretty rare. Yeah, I mean, there's still organized crime in Japan, like there's the Yakuza, and if the Yakuza games have taught

taught me anything. It's that big buff dudes go out on the street and start bashing up everyone and throwing objects around. So I treat that as obviously nonfiction. That's legitimate. But yeah, I mean, Japan did have an organized crime element to it, especially in the 60s and 70s, I think, and 80s. But I'm assuming this type, like they were more direct maybe in this type of crime was maybe a bit more niche. Yeah.

So despite the threatening letter not leading to anything, the bank manager still obviously told his employees to make sure they stay observant, safe and watch out for anything suspicious. What a good guy. Yeah. I mean, yeah, that's the least he could do.

Alright, so now we come to the robbery. The title here is the robbery. I'm assuming it is the robbery, the main heist. So it was the season in Japan, the season for staff bonuses. These were often paid in cash and banks were currently or preparing to deliver these bonuses to the companies and their employees. And on the 10th of December 1968, it was Toshiba Fuchu factory's turn. Toshiba, like the computer company? Same one? Yeah.

In the early morning around 9.30am, four employees of the Nihon Shitaku Ginko, or the Nippon Trust Bank, started to transport 300 million yen. Wonder what will happen to that. I don't know. I have no idea. It went securely to the staffs for their bonuses. Yeah. The money was secured in three metal boxes in the trunk of their Nissan Cedric, a relatively normal car at the time. And besides that, there was not much protection at all because I'm assuming they just didn't deal with it.

at all often so this is so crazy to me just driving around in a car yeah especially because you know when I used to work in shopping centres and retails and stuff and you show up at the same time that

cash transfer vehicles would show up and take things and it was so insanely secure. Yeah, like the giant Fort Knox vans. Yeah, and security guards and things like that. Take it very seriously. And this is just, it looks like, if this is the car, we'll put it up on the screen right now, it looks like just a, you know, like a four-door typical 60s car. They're just driving around full of

300 million yen. 300 million yen being transported in like three cases as well. I just can't visualize that much money. I guess they probably have like different denominations of notes. So maybe they got like a million dollar note or something. But still, that's so much. I feel like that's so much. You're probably wondering why they use such a normal car to transport such a large amount of money and not an armored vehicle. Japan in the 1960s was considered a relatively safe country with a strong sense of social order. And...

As we're preparing to go to Japan at this moment, that's what I've always heard as well. Like Japan's one of the safest countries around because people in the Japanese community, um,

in the country takes social order so seriously. Like we were watching an interesting video the other night in preparation and apparently it's not common at all for people to like jaywalk even. Like they always wait for the green light. And in Australia it's just such a common thing. Everyone does it all the time. I mean, I hate it. Yeah, you are. I hate jaywalking. Like myself, I get super anxious like jaywalking. But maybe I'll feel at home in Japan then.

They gave the bank no reason to use such an expensive vehicle to transfer money and they have done it safely numerous times before. They also had the idea that using an armored vehicle would draw suspicion to them if any criminals were planning on stealing the money. I mean, yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. So they used an inconspicuous vehicle. Obviously, this time, this did not work in their favor. No. It did not. As the car neared the Toshiba factory, one of my first laptops was a Toshiba, just a

Shout out to... Fun fact. Yeah. Fun fact. Thanks, Toshiba. You started all this. Yeah, maybe, technically. A sense of relief was washing over the four men. They knew about the threats that had happened only four days earlier and they had a lot of money in the back of the car. Can I cut in here and ask if one of the theories could be that they stole the money, those four men in the car? They have looked into, from what I could see... Of course, I would look into them immediately, surely. And also...

like previous bank workers and stuff like that, but none of the evidence was lining up. And I think as you'll see when we get to the evidence and stuff like that, there's actually kind of,

I don't know how to describe it, but a bit of a loop and a bit of a system that the guy did. And it just didn't seem, I think, to work out to be one of these guys. So things just didn't add up. Yeah. Okay. I think they looked into a lot of people and something just didn't add up. Something to rule them out. Yeah. Uh,

Yeah, so they had a lot of money in the back of the car, but it was only 200 meters from their destination when a man dressed as a police officer on a motorbike pulled up to them and stopped the vehicle. At first, they weren't concerned. It was just a police officer to check everything was right. Okay. The man told the bank employees...

that their manager's house had been bombed and that he had received a warning that the car might be rigged with explosives. The employees believed the officer's story and exited the car, leaving the keys inside along with the keys to the metal boxes filled with cash. Why wouldn't you believe the police officer? Yeah, I mean, if someone... Yeah, I always think about that, like how easy it would be to trick me. If a police officer just walked up to me and told me to do something, I would probably do it. Yeah. Yeah, I wouldn't be like...

Can you confirm that you're a police officer or something? Yeah. I've actually heard stories about, you know, maybe like a female driving alone at night. Yeah. They have a police officer coming. They always like call the station. Yeah, first and double check. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911.

It's triple zero over here. I don't know why I'm putting it in American terms. Yeah, but yeah, I have heard stories like that as well, which is obviously the smart thing to do. But I'm thinking like when you're on a street and a police officer just walks up to you. And I guess this time, like, you know, these guys didn't really have any reason not to believe them.

Yeah, I mean, there were four of them and one of him. Yeah. As the man crawled under the car looking for any explosives, he suddenly lit a warning flare he had on him and smoke and flames would start flowing out from under the car. The man would roll out from under the car and tell the employees that the car was about to explode. That is a... That is, yeah, that is very theatrical. That's a very cool way of kind of like diffusing the scene or getting people out of the way.

Understandably, they ran and while they were heading the opposite direction to the car, the man seized this opportunity, hopped in the car and drove away first. Maybe they thought it was still going to explode and that police officer was just a hero getting the car out of the scene. Yeah, they did. They actually think that? Yeah, so the man turned right at the intersection. He ignored the red light. He almost hit a truck and the workers stood there confused. They were looking and they thought,

oh my god, this brave officer has just driven off this car and saved all of us. He's ignored this red light. He risked his life. He nearly got hit by this truck. Saluting him as he drives away with 300 million yen. Damn. Thank you. And then it washed over them. Well, maybe he did drive it away and it exploded somewhere. That's why we've never found it. Oh, that's actually quite sad. Maybe he was a brave police officer. Yeah.

We're just shitting on him. Yeah. For 60 years, we've just been making fun of him. But they quickly realized they were wrong and that this wasn't a brave heroic man. And as dread and horror washed over them, they looked at each other, knowing they would never see that man, the car, or the cash again. I bet they were terrified of the repercussions. Oh my god. Imagine, yeah, being kind of responsible for that situation. Not that it was necessarily their fault or anything. No.

I can, I mean, I don't know. You definitely feel stressed if you lost like $3 million. We could cut this, whatever. But I remember I was 5 cents short once on my deal in retail. And my manager, who was lovely, but she said, that could have been someone's bus money. And I felt so bad. And it was 5 cents. You're there all night tracking that person down. And I was like, damn, someone couldn't get home. Yeah, did you check the bus stops? She could have still been there. So...

These guys probably would have felt so terrible. Yep. The only thing left behind was the dynamite that became visible as the car drove away. It never exploded, but it continued to emit smoke and small flames. The workers cautiously approached it and realized it was just a flare. The gravity of what just happened was hitting them. The whole heist only took about three minutes. That was all it took for this unknown man to take nearly 300 steps.

million yen. Only three minutes. And that's it? That was the entire robbery? Yep, that was it. That's so easy. That's not even a heist. You just took it. I wouldn't call that a heist. Yeah, he pretty much just took it straight out of their hands. Yeah, he's like, psych. He just knew how to manipulate the situation. Yep. I'll take this next little bit as well. Okay. After the robbery...

"Accompanying the lonely flare was the police motorcycle this man left behind." Surely that was worth a little bit of money too, the police motorcycle? Or did he just steal it from a… Wait till you hear about it. It's quite funny. Okay. "As the workers got close, they realized it was just a normal motorbike that had been painted to look like it was a police vehicle." Yeah.

One of the bank employees went to a gas station that was close by and called the bank to tell them of the incident and the bank manager would then alert the police. Emergency police were deployed all over Tokyo by the Metropolitan Police Department and checkpoints began to get carried out at key locations. But this man was one step ahead. The police were searching for the Nissan car he stole, but little did they know he had already swapped cars multiple times. The checkpoint plan was a failure.

I assume we know why we know that he swapped cars multiple times and that'll come into play soon. Yeah. Okay. All right. Would you like to take the investigation? I will. So the investigation of the robbery is one of the most fascinating aspects of this case because of the sheer amount of evidence that was left behind. The thief left over 120 pieces of evidence at various scenes. Most of the items were stolen and many believed the items were left to throw off detectives and try to overwhelm them.

The investigation was broken down into four different crime scenes. So that's how we're going to cover it and go over the major pieces of evidence. So we're going to go over the four main locations of the case. So the first one was obviously the initial crime scene. This is where the robbery took place and there was quite a sizable amount of evidence left behind.

One of the biggest was definitely the motorcycle. Of course. As we've gone over. That was used to trick the bank employees. And the thief put a lot of effort into making it look quite legit. Did he actually? Did he need to? Or did he just write police on the side of it? Well, it was a Yamaha Sports 350 R1 that had actually been stolen a month prior. It was originally blue, but it had been painted white and had a bunch of

MacGyver type accessories with it. Thank you. It's an old TV show. My brain stopped for a moment. It had been fitted with a megaphone that was also painted white. This megaphone, it was actually stolen from a construction site down in Higashimayama. Thank you. So they were able to figure this out by tracking the serial number on the item back to that construction site, but it led to nothing. Unfortunately, it was a waste of time.

There was also a cookie tin. I've done a typo there, but that is tin. There was also a cookie ton on the bike. I like that. That should be a merch idea. I've done a typo. I've done a typo. That's great. So there was a cookie tin on the bike. It had been painted to look like a place. It clearly says a cookie ton. Yeah.

I believe there's a cookie ton on this book. Stop it. I'll edit it right now. No, no, no, please. So it had been painted to look like a police document box. So the police believed that this thief had done quite a bit of research into how the police motorcycles looked or already knew how they were fitted. Right. That's suspicious. One thing we know for certain, he put in quite a bit of effort into making it look real.

So in the suspects, we don't actually go over anyone who was in the police force, but I think it's quite an interesting theory to think that maybe they had some sort of connection to the police force. Or failing that, potentially like the production of police equipment, maybe the manufacturers of the police bikes, for example. Because even though it was DIY, it was enough to convince some people and was quite accurate.

quite accurate to what the vehicles were like at the time.

There was also the flares that were left behind too. They were high flare five that could be bought at any gas station at the time. Okay. Which is crazy to me. Because there were so many being produced and sold, it was impossible to track down who bought this specific one. I've never needed to use a flare before in my life. No, I can confidently say I have never needed one either. And apparently they were very popular. Just to use recreationally? Yeah.

I mean, when Godzilla attacks every weekend, maybe you need it. So the way that the thief actually used this flare was he had two magnets and he tried to stick the flare to the underneath of the car with the magnets. So the idea was that it would continue to flare on the car as he drove off. Okay.

So that he could convince like... Yeah, so it was... I guess if the car looks like it's about to explode even while he's driving, everyone avoids him. I feel like he's going to get a few more minutes there to get away. So wait, he changed it so that it did that? So what he did is he had two magnets and he wanted to stick the flare to the bottom of the car with the magnets. Okay. Yeah. So the flare didn't just leave...

It wasn't on the floor, no. Well, it fell off as he drove away. So it was a bit of a fail. He was somewhat unsuccessful. Yeah. So I feel like even though they would have realized pretty soon that something had happened, it would have given him a few more minutes to get away and probably a bit of a smoother getaway. Plus, if it just stuck on the car, they would have never known that it was not a flare. Yeah. He could have escaped with that evidence. Yeah.

So this was ultimately, so because it fell off, it was ultimately useless. And the magnets, like the flares, was impossible to track down. A for effort though. Yeah.

There was also one more piece of evidence found that's quite interesting to note, though, and that's a hunting hat that they found. This was quite big and the police were hoping for a breakthrough with finding some DNA like sweat or hair or something on the hat. But there was a bit of a big confusing mistake that happened here and the officers actually took turns in trying the hat on.

before they sent it to analysis. So that would have made it hard for... So it was pretty much impossible for a proper analysis to be performed. It became a dead end. But damn, did they look good in that hat. Yeah, they looked so good in that hat. I mean, I haven't seen a photo, but I can imagine they did. Oh, they didn't take any photos with it? Yeah. That's a shame. So quite interesting that, you know, that could have been a really big lead if they had some hair or something, but unfortunately not. Yeah. Okay, so the second crime scene was...

Nishimoto Machi in Tokyo. Sounds about right, yeah. It was actually near the entrance to a cemetery. And it was here that the police found the bank transportation vehicle. It was abandoned. Neither the cash nor the cases carrying them were found. But a local in the area did tell the police that they saw a dark blue Corolla parked there. Oh, not a Toyota Corolla. A few days earlier. A Toyota Corolla. Yep. They strike again. Yeah.

The police theorize that the man has switched cars, always planning to leave the original car abandoned there. This Corolla would also be found at a later point. So we're doing a little bit of switching around with cars. Yeah. He's obviously planned this. Yes, definitely. A little bit of thought has gone into this. So I wonder how far away that is from the initial crime scene. Oh, I haven't got that written here. Because it's...

The second crime scene was in Nishimura Machi in Tokyo. And also the robbery was in Tokyo as well. Next is Sake Machi, if you want to continue. Yep.

So this is the third crime scene. It was located near a high school in Fuchu City in Tokyo as well. So found here was a raincoat, initially promising, but had no DNA or anything useful to it. We're having a very repetitive cycle of finding something exciting and nothing coming out of it, unfortunately. This would have been extremely frustrating. How do they know it was, how do they know the raincoat was connected?

I think it was just in the, so they found the stolen Corolla here. So I reckon it was in the area. So yeah, the Corolla was stolen and it had been stolen between November the 30th and December the 1st. So this was approximately like what, 10 to 12 days before the initial robbery. When it was discovered, the door was still open and the wipers were actually still running. Okay.

Another witness who was in this area actually saw the fake police vehicle near the stolen car previously. Oh, okay.

So this is when the detectives came up with a bit of a theory about what happened before the heist. They believe that the thief tracked the route of the bank car with the Toyota Corolla, found at the third scene, and then switched to the motorcycle, stole the bank car, drove to the second scene, which he then transferred the money into another car and then left. Okay. Does that make sense? Yes, I think so. Yes. Okay.

But then we have another scene. Yes, we have another one. This one wasn't actually discovered. Wait, can I just interrupt? Like, how do they track down these crime scenes? How did they track down the crime scenes? Yeah, how do they know that this is where this third scene at Sakai Machi, where he dumped the Corolla? How were they able to track that down? Did someone just put in like a tip maybe? It could have been tip. It could have also been like there were thousands of...

police officers coming through the city as well, looking for these cars. Gotcha. Yeah. And so they had like registration, like the license plates and stuff. Yeah. Well, on the photo, the registration is still on it. Yeah. Okay. So yeah, no, they had a lot of people out looking for these cars, this man and this money. Oh my God. This next one's funny. So the fourth scene was in a parking lot of a housing complex in New

Kojinai city in Tokyo. So back in Tokyo. Yeah. He's doing loops. Are we always been in Tokyo? Yeah, we've always been in Tokyo. Oh, it's Fuchu in... Yeah. Oh, yeah. Fuchu city, Tokyo. Tokyo's big. Yeah. There was quite a sizable amount of evidence that would be found here. It wasn't discovered or investigated until April 9th, about four months after the initial robbery. So they had quite a bit of time to sit there. Mm-hmm.

Open to the elements, open to whatever. A lot of evidence might have, or forensics might have, you know, been blown away or anything. So the Corolla that was spotted at the second crime scene that was spotted would be found here.

Wait, sorry. And was there at least a day after the robbery? We know because of aerial photographs that have been taken by self-defense forces and the car can be seen in these photos. Okay, so self-defense forces are ostensibly, I'm pretty sure, the military of America. Because after World War II, they weren't able to have their own military as part of the agreement with the Allies. But basically, the Americans let them get around it by creating a self-defense force.

So this is basically their military. Yeah. So they could actually see the cars on the aerial shots. Yeah. So inside they actually found the metal cases that we used to house the cash.

but they were empty. There was a tiny bit of soil that was found in one of them, literally 1.5 grams, which was nothing. So when investigated initially by the Metropolitan Police Department, they discovered that the soil was similar to dirt that was found in the woods about 4km away from the initial crime scene. Right.

But it was also looked into by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Forest Research Institute. Catchy. Yeah, I think... Yeah, that's a really catchy name. Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Forest Research Institute. Yes. That is... It's like...

It's like cyclical. Like ministry and institute mean the same thing to me. And then it's got forestry and fisheries forest. That's a lot of like the same words. Forestry and fisheries forest. That's cool. Yeah. When they looked into this tiny, tiny little bit of dirt, they thought it was similar to the dirt near the second crime scene. That's interesting. I wonder how they determined that. Yeah. Just by the type of soil. Yeah. Yeah.

So they had an idea that the thief may have had a hideout near Koyukubu. Yeah, thank you. Which this was near the initial crime scene, but when they looked around and scoured, they never found anything. Because they thought if the dirt was similar to what was near the initial crime scene, maybe it had been picked up in a hideout somewhere nearby, but they combed through, they never found anything. Couldn't find anything. And you can see there in the photo how big the cases are.

This will be up on screen right now for video listeners, but for audio listeners, they are big cases. Pretty big cases. Yeah, they're all the same size. The police investigators are opening them. They're metal giant cases and they are empty. Yeah. And everyone looks confused.

Yeah. Looking very close in there. They're like leaning down, like looking in the case, like seeing if the money could be hiding anywhere. Is there any secret money in there? Do you know if that photo was taken when they first found the cases or is it after? I don't know, but it doesn't look like it. It looks like it's made. Could it be a press conference? I don't know. But I think the way that they've laid out something underneath it and they've got the specific gloves on, they're showing the press.

I don't think it was, could have been same day maybe, but I don't think it was initially. So in the area, there were three stolen cars and another stolen motorcycle would be found. The stolen motorcycle, a Honda Dream, is theorized to have been what the thief originally wanted to be, the fake motorcycle to be used. But it actually had a defect that made it prone to knocking and decelerating. Knocking. Knocking, yes.

So it had a bit of a defect. It was a bit loud. It wasn't really like proper police cars, so he couldn't use it. So it's sort of he left it there and then he went and stole another one that he actually used in the robbery, a better one. He's stealing a lot of cars. He is stealing a lot of cars. Because there were multiple stolen vehicles found at the scene, it's believed that this indicated that there might have been multiple people involved with the scheme.

So that could be interesting. They're out looking for one man, but really the money's been distributed to multiple people that no one knows. Another aspect that led to this theory is that a pair of women's earrings were also found in one of the stolen cars, which was a Prince Skyline 2000 GT. I love Skylines. Do you? Yeah. Some of my favorite early cars. So...

Maybe one of the thieves was actually a woman. Progressive. There was also a number of gambling items that were found inside the car, including horse racing newspapers, sporting newspapers, that sort of thing. The original owner of the car said they weren't his. So could this person have been a gambling influence or could that person have had a secret guilty pleasure and it was actually the owner of the car? Yeah.

True, yeah. Maybe. Because I think shame and stuff is a big component of Japanese society. So if he had to come out and be like, yeah, I love gambling, that might have looked bad. But at the same time, I feel like gambling goes kind of hard in Japan. I feel like it's pretty okay in Japan. I don't know for sure. But what I will say is reading this, the amount of stolen vehicles, the gambling items in the car, I am actually kind of leaning towards organized crime as in

Potentially the Yakuza or something like that. It does sound like the plot from a Like a Dragon game. Just saying. Just saying. So before we move on to the suspects, we should go over the threatening letter that pretty much started all of this.

The envelope that was sent to the bank was revealed to have traces of saliva and blood on it. Finally, a piece of DNA evidence that they could use. So the blood type specifically was type B. Sadly, though, this would not lead to anything substantial. Is type B like super common?

I don't think, I'm pretty sure O is the most common, but it's not the most rare because I think the rarest is sort of like an AB. Don't you have rare blood? I do. What do I have? Common filthy mud blood? I don't think having rare blood is a flex because if I need, if I need blood, that's not good. Yeah. You'll still feel special though in that moment. They're like, you have rare blood. And I'm like, really? Really? I'm rare. That's so great.

The letter would also use phrases such as we whenever talking about themselves. So this did indicate that it could have been a group effort. They were looking for multiple people. And that brings us to suspects. So multiple suspects over the years have been considered and even organized crime groups like the Yakuza. I've never heard that theory before. My God. But none have been definitively proven otherwise.

other than the Yakuza, obviously. Yeah. The list of key suspects reached around 110. What? We already said that number at the start. Oh, I thought you said there were 110,000 police officers. No, that was 170,000.

Jesus, everyone in Japan was involved in this. The list of key suspects reached around 110,000, but only a few are worth looking at, including two major cases or two major ones we will now go over. I'll take the first one, then you can take the next. Yeah, sure. This one's the hectic one. Okay, so we have Boy S, or is that Boy's?

Boy S. I'm going to say boys. No. The first suspect made rounds in the media and would be named Boys, who was around 19 at the time of the robbery. Boy S was the leader of a gang called the Tachikawa Group. Tachikawa being a city in Tokyo. The group was known to frequently break into cars and steal them. We have one connection. What do you mean? Oh, the cars. Cars, yeah. Um...

Boye S. also had experience riding motorcycles because he was the son of a police officer who would regularly ride on police-issued motorcycles. We'll explain why he knew so much about motorcycles. Knew how to ride them, knew what they looked like. Yeah.

This is making a lot of sense already. Boy S was also friends with another group who had robbed a supermarket earlier that year using fake flares disguised as dynamite. I mean, come on, this is them. This is him. How is it not him? Like, yeah, I'm doing the thing that you said earlier where I'm reading it and it's like, well, obviously this is him. Yeah, I believe it. I believe it. It's obvious when you say it like this. But,

Perhaps he decided to copy this idea and use it on a much larger scale. There are definitely some undeniable connections of Boy S to this case. The biggest piece of evidence that points towards Boy S is that earlier in the year, he had talked with his gang about robbing a cash transport vehicle. Boy S seems like a pretty likely suspect. And the police thought so too, as they put a lot of focus into investigating him. But...

And this is a big but. There was also some significant evidence to prove he may have not been guilty. The DNA found on the stamp didn't match boy S as he had blood type A. But that doesn't matter. Like someone, he could have, he's in a gang. He could have been with other people who bled, right?

It was also determined that he did not write the initial letter through a handwriting analysis. Yeah, again, if you're like looking at this granular, like focus on this one guy doing every component of the crime, then there's going to be a lot of holes poked through. But we've already determined that… Could have been a group of people. Could have been a group of people. And he's also… He's got a… What was it? Tachikawa group. He's running with the boys. So are we sure this isn't just boys? It's boy-esque. It could have just been the boys. I'm pretty sure it's boy-esque. Yeah.

It was also determined that he did not write the initial letter through a handwriting analysis. There was also one more pretty major thing that made investigating Boy S as the perpetrator pretty difficult. But, oh man, I feel bad now. Five days after the incident, he actually committed. Is that why it's called Boy S? I don't know, but you've just blown my mind. I want to know why it's called Boy S now. Is that like really? It could be to do with his name or something like that. Well, hopefully it's not just Boy S.

I don't think so. I think he might have been boy S probably before. The police had begun to stalk at his home and even though there was an order not to communicate with the family yet, there was some sort of miscommunication and the officers visited the home asking for him. Oh, so he committed after the police came investigating. That does sound kind of guilty. Yeah. So...

It does, yeah. So they didn't... Like, they weren't supposed to come and ask for him yet. I don't know if they were... They didn't have a warrant? Yeah, or I don't know if they were maybe just trying to get...

like see what he does, follow him around for a few days. Well, it doesn't sound like they were staking him out. It sounds like they directly went to the home asking for him because the mother replied, I don't have a son. And that was all they got out of her. So they didn't actually meet him. But then the mom would have gone up. They didn't meet him. Yeah, the mom would have gone up and told him. Later that evening when his father returned home from work, officers outside their home could hear the two men arguing. That night, boy S committed suicide by ingesting potassium cyanide.

Mm-hmm. Damn. Do you think potentially the father wouldn't have pushed him into it? There's a couple of really interesting things you'll read in the next bit, but it does sort of feel strange that the way that all sort of happened. Because I'm thinking like the dad was a police officer. Yeah. Which could have been very shameful for him. Yeah.

But I still couldn't just imagine like a father wanting his son to commit. Yeah. No, neither. Or like killing him for it. I don't know. People who knew Boy S said that they had never thought he would be the type to commit. And the cyanide he had access to was actually his father's that he had actually bought himself. And it was wrapped in newspaper that had his father's fingerprints all over it.

Okay, well, I'm going back on what I said. That sounds strange. That is strange. Really strange. There were two notes, one written to his mother and one to his sister. Though we don't know exactly what is in the letters, it seems there was nothing incriminating in them as later the police determined he was innocent. How did they determine he was innocent? Through the blood? Yeah, it was just through the blood. So on here...

Um, so many people like believed he was the thief labeled in the perpetrator, even in crime novels and the media and just stuff like that. But the DNA evidence, you know, with the blood type and everything like that directly said that, you know, that wasn't him. So though there was circumstantial evidence, um, and that his, that was so soon after it happens, that was really suspicious, could have been unrelated. Yeah.

You know, they don't know. But yeah, so the blood evidence was really the main reason why he was ruled out. To me, yeah, that's, I mean, all the information again, like even if there is forensic evidence that seems to rule him out, just the pure amount of things that happened after the point where he was found to have been investigated, like he's

the arguing, uh, his prior history with crime of the same type, as well as the fact that obviously he had like access to knowing how police motorcycles worked. And he also used flares previously. Apparently as well, he had some friends that had come into a bit of money, like

like after the crime. But... The blood doesn't... Yeah, the blood doesn't match. Yeah, but if it wasn't that, like it could have just been one of the other gang members' blood. Yeah, I know. This seems like the most logical...

Yeah. Okay. But now tell me about suspect A. Yes. So we're going to go into suspect A. This is probably one of the most controversial figures in the investigation with the outcome that led to a lot of scrutiny over the way the police handled it. So nearly a year after the robbery, detectives reviewing the evidence identified a 26 year old man who bore a strong resemblance to the thief. All they had at this time was the composite sketches from

from the four men that were involved in the crime. Yeah, so just witness sketches? Just witness sketches. And they believed that this man had a bit of a, yeah, a strong resemblance. When the bank employees were shown this photograph of the man, one reportedly remarked, it's the most similar photo I have been shown so far. Okay. So immediately, obviously, the police were interested in investigating further.

There were other factors too that pointed to him possibly being guilty. He was an experienced taxi driver familiar with the area. His blood type matched what was found on the stamp with the original thing. He was skilled at riding motorcycles and he owned a hunting hat similar to the one left at the scene. He did it. I'm on board. This guy did it. He absolutely did it. In fact, Suspect A and boys, they combined. They teamed up for this one heist.

It's got to be him. He also quit his job and moved only two days after the robbery. Yep, I mean. Yeah. A bit suspicious, a little bit strange. I mean, maybe his job was not very good, but. Or maybe he came into 300 million yen somehow. Yeah, maybe he didn't need his job anymore. There were two major things that stuffed the police from bringing him in, though. His handwriting didn't match the threatening letter.

And he showed no signs of having a sudden influx in cash. So even though he quit his job, there were no records or anything to show he had a lot of money. Someone that performed this would probably know how to launder the money, though, I would assume, and make it clean. Or, yeah, in this situation, I assume the person just straight up buried it somewhere where only they knew where the money was until they could then make it clean down the line. Yeah.

So because of this, they just kept him in view but washed from a distance for now. So this sort of changed on December the 12th in 1969 when Main Manichi Simbam, a major Japanese newspaper, published an article titled Key Witness in the 300 Million Yen Robbery, Former Driver from Fuchu City.

This article identified the man as a suspect, although they did initially use an alias, which was suspect A, A for anonymous. And that's how we got our suspect name. Oh, I'm 100% then. If suspect A is suspect anonymous, then boy S is boy. I don't know. Maybe. Oh, that's awful. Yeah, that is. I'm looking it up.

This obviously made the police jump into action. They feared he might flee, so they abruptly brought him in for questioning. They tried to stop the publication of these newspaper articles, but they weren't able to, which is strange to me. I feel like the police would have a final foot, step down to these not getting published, but they tried apparently and they were unsuccessful. So they had to bring him in quite urgently for questioning. During this interrogation,

Did you find something? No. I googled, why was Boy S known as Boy S in 300 million yen robbery? And the first link on the Google page for this is Wikipedia and it's North American Man-Boy Love Association. Oh my god. Nambla. Where the fuck is Nambla showing up on this? No. I've gone down a horrible path then. Okay. I don't want to know why he was called Boy S. Please continue.

So during the interrogation, suspect A reportedly lied about his place of employment, which did raise suspicions, obviously.

However, the police's treatment of him drew pretty severe criticism. Detectives allegedly subjected him to intense verbal abuse, accused him repeatedly of the crime, and reportedly used physical violence, including pulling out his hair and beating him until he coughed up blood. So we don't know if this happened, but this is apparently actions that happened in the interrogation. Yeah, I've heard horrifying stuff out of like the Japanese police, uh,

And prison life, apparently it's not good. No. So despite these tactics, though, he did not confess to the crime. The police ultimately arrested him on an unrelated charge stemming from a fight with a debt collector a year prior.

The media frenzy, of course, intensified the next day. It was December the 13th as newspapers published suspect A's name and face labeling him directly as a suspect. Okay. So no more suspect A for… Well, not just as a suspect. It sounds like labeling him as the culprit. Yeah, pretty much. Yep. There was… Yeah, the culprit. No more A for anonymous. His face is out there. Okay. Yeah.

But we don't know. I mean, we should know. Huh? We should know. We don't have the name in here, though. No, we don't have the name in here. So his luck did slightly turn around after this. A witness who saw his photo in the papers actually contacted the police and confirmed that suspect Day had been taking a recruitment exam for a trading company and Nihon Bashi at the time of the robbery. Wow. I...

How did that not come up? I don't know. He didn't, I don't know why he would lie about his initial place of work or didn't say this. I'm not sure, but this happened and he had an alibi. The police checked it, it checked out. So he was released, but the damage was done. It ruined his life.

As you can imagine, he struggled to keep a job. He was forced to just work odd jobs, part-time jobs, whatever he could find. His friends and family didn't want to associate with him anymore. Even more like tragically in 1989, his wife would die due to a, how do you say that word? Subarachnoid? Yeah. Hemorrhage.

So his wife death stressed him out so much he actually was hospitalized in a psychiatric hospital. And in 2008, he stabbed himself in the stomach with a knife and jumped out of the window of a fifth floor building. So this man, his life was truly ruined by these events. And he was innocent. Yeah. By the sounds of it, he was in Nihonbashi. Yeah. Wow. That's so messed up and so sad. Yeah. Yeah.

Even years after. Both suspects have been tragic cases. Yeah. It's like it just has a really bad luck associated with it. You know, even years after his name was cleared, as they do, a lot of the media and the people still believed he was the culprit. But if we're to believe what the police ruled and everything like that, his life was ruined for something he had no involvement in. The two major suspects of this robbery, they both committed

Only one was fully proven innocent. The latter due to alibi. Yeah. Some believe the robbery was an inside job because of the thief's deep knowledge of the delivery route and schedules. So this is just going over a couple of the other theories and things that the police have sort of looked at and investigated into. So like we said, you know, could it have been someone who was

In the works at the bank, they knew what vehicles they were using. They knew the routes that they were taking. They knew these men. Maybe they knew what could trick them. They were sort of planting those seeds beforehand knowing that they could perform something like this. They knew the ins and outs.

Could it have been someone who was inside? Someone in the police force or the manufacturing? I mean, I can tell, I can see why there were over 110,000 suspects. Yeah, it's just so broad. Yeah, so many different people it could have been. I will say my opinion is that Boy S does look very interesting. I think it was a gang job just due to the kind of scale of it. I don't see how you would have pulled this off without Boy S.

kind of gang affiliation and gang collaboration um but yeah realistically just in terms of obviously one of the suspects here was proven innocent and the other still had questionable details surrounding him and the suicide does obviously make him look uh guilty yeah guilty in the context of him finding out that he's under investigation and then committing though

Devil's advocate, that could be because he knew there was a level of shame with even being just investigated. Well, look what happened to the second suspect A. Yeah, exactly. You know, because he didn't commit suicide until...

Many decades later. And even though he was cleared, his life was ruined. Yeah. So obviously, even just being investigated in a high profile case like this, your father's the police officer. Yeah. You've probably already going through a pretty rough life given that you have fallen to like gang affiliation stuff. Yeah. It's believable basically that there are reasons other than him being guilty that could have led to his death. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. A lot of people believe that it was done and organized by a crime group like the Yakuza because, you know, this sort of thing could have been done by one person.

But it would have been a lot easier to be done by a few people. Yeah. That would be a pretty plausible answer for that. This seems like gang crime to me, definitely. Like just the amount, again, the scale of the operations, swapping the cars multiple times. They probably would have had multiple people stealing the different vehicles to kind of spread it out. Yeah. Obviously, just I don't know the details specifically about that.

The more granular stuff in here, I'm just going by instinct. But yeah, it does seem like something that would be gang affiliated. Yeah. And to this day, nobody's been arrested. To this day, nobody's been arrested. Lots of suspects on this case, all dead ends so far. Looked at the bank employees, couldn't find anything. Looked into the organized gang groups, apparently couldn't find anything.

It was a well orchestrated crime. They had, you know, if it was a gang group that had the means to do it, but again, there was no evidence. They even thought, like we said before, could have been done by an actual police officer. They knew how to evade the police. They knew how to act and dress up and, you know, how to,

make their motorcycle look real, even though it had a cookie ton. A cookie ton on it. A cookie ton. Everything led to nothing. Oh, it led to two suicides, which is tragic. Yeah. So it was like, at least in the case, it led to nothing. But tragically, you know. That's crazy that like we started this episode off by saying this was a victimless crime or a crime without violence. But then when you really look into it, it's led into violence. Yeah, it still led to two suicides.

It's crazy, the butterfly effect. Yeah. And even with over 100,000 suspects recorded and even over 700,000 composite sketches reviewed, there was nothing certain. Okay. So aftermath, police would release some of the numbers on the yen bank notes, but this didn't help either. And there was no evidence that the money had ever been spent. That's interesting. Yeah. I wonder how that would have been achieved.

Well, if the person died, then there would have been no way of spending it. That's true. If they hid it. That's true. But one of the things, like I said before, is that there is those talk that Boy S's friends came into money later on. Yeah, but surely they could have like. It could have been another way. If they've got the banknote numbers, I feel like as soon as that's spent, it could have registered somewhere. Yeah.

That seems like if they never even found those numbers again, that means that it probably wasn't spent. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know how you even launder money. Like I know there's like over Australia. We don't know how to be criminals. If we did. Oh man. To the government, we are not criminals. Once we learn.

I know in Australia, the way of laundering money is, pro tip, is to go like to the pokies, the poker machines at the, any, pretty much everywhere has pokey machines now. Video poker machines and inserting in there and then. Didn't Friendly Geordies do a whole. Yeah, Friendly Geordies. Shout out to Friendly Geordies. Yeah, did a whole YouTube video about this. We'll link Friendly Geordies video below.

Go watch Friendly Geordies, it's great. Yeah, he did a video on that. Yeah, that's how you launder money over here, very interesting way. I guess, I don't know how common it was back then in Japan, but I know that they've also got a system, like pachinko, it's called pachinko, where you go in, or sorry, you go over to a store, you pay money, let's say like 500 yen for 500 pachinko balls,

And this is how they skirt around anti-gambling laws in Japan. You buy it at like this convenience store or some secondary store. You buy the little metal balls and then you go into a completely separate store where you then spend those balls to play pachinko. And it's like a gambling game. You put the pachinko balls in and depending on where they land, you

you get rewarded with a different amount of pachinko balls. So let's say you put one pachinko ball in and it wins, and then you get 100 pachinko balls. That's a big win. You've now turned one pachinko ball into 100 balls. And now what you do, and this is how they get around those laws, is you take those 100 balls back over to the store that sells the pachinko balls, and you transfer back to cash there.

Oh, right. I didn't know this. So that's a very interesting way of how they were able to circumvent those gambling laws. And if that's a thing back in the 60s, I guess that could potentially be a way of making money clean. But again, I don't know how it works in granular detail because you still would have had to buy the pachinko balls with that money in the first place. I'm assuming it was cleaned underground, basically. I start to think, you know, my first thought is,

Holy shit, how is that 300 million yen just sitting there and it's probably never been spent. But then also I think in the 1960s, how easy was it for them to track money serial numbers and stuff like that? Yeah, I was thinking that too. And if it was anywhere other than Japan, I would have been like, I would have agreed with that. But Japan is, from what I think anyway...

From what I've heard, it's always been on the cutting edge of like tracking and technology and stuff. Yeah. I do wonder what the technology was like at that time. Yeah. I don't know. And like, you know, maybe, you know, the statues of limitation passed, but I wonder if ever they have caught one or two of those banknotes ever going through the system years later. Would they have said? I don't know. I didn't see anything about it. That's just me thinking out loud. It'd be quite interesting. Yeah.

Yeah. Maybe they're not even paying attention anymore due to the nature of the statute of limitations being passed, which it did, like you said, in 1975, it passed. So even if the thief wanted to, he could admit to the crime and tell his story without facing any legal repercussions. If I did. Yeah, if I did. He will release a book if I did, if I stole 300 million yen. This is how I do it. 1975.

1975, that's only like 10 years after. I feel like that, is that not pretty normal? Is it? I just don't understand why there isn't even a statute of limitations on bank heists. I don't know. What is the point of statute of limitations? I'm a different person.

I don't know. Because I feel like if someone commits something atrocious, 10 years later, they're still going to be a really shitty person. It doesn't matter. I don't think there's a statute of limitation for murder, right? I actually don't know. Well, there shouldn't be because I've claimed a life. Now, 50 years later, you find out I should still be responsible for that murder and taking a life. Well, I guess there is a lot of cases where DNA has been improving and they have now found murderers from...

a long time ago. Yeah, but like, what does that mean? But like, they're bringing them in. Oh, so there is no such a limitation. Yeah. Like, you've heard about people doing, like, they're coming in and they're being arrested now, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, so I don't know. So I guess for something serious like that, there's no statute of limitations, but bank heists are fine, maybe. This is Japan, of course. But I was pretty sure the legal institutions of Japan post-World War II were pretty closely related to America because of America's kind of remodeling of Japan post-war.

So once the statute of limitations passed, many people would come forward claiming to be the thief, but none could provide any evidence and most probably were lying for attention slash fame. After the investigation concluded, it was reported that multiple officers and detectives committed

due to not being able to solve the crime. How many fucking lives were lost due to this? That's insane. The investigation is considered to be one of the biggest failures of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department, and this would be further shown in pop culture in Japan. This case has been adapted and referenced in dozens of novel stage plays, multiple movies, dozens of TV shows, comics, and music. And so, in conclusion, the 300 million yen robbery is probably one of the most creative and interesting heists of all time.

Yeah, I do. It's definitely one of the most interesting. The entire investigation cost more than the amount the thief stole and lasted seven years. Despite such a huge investigation, nothing substantial would ever come from it. In fact, only tragedy would. Media at the time didn't help the investigation and it is a great example as to why investigators withhold key information of the case from the public. It also kind of shows how bloodthirsty society can be in terms of

Once names and stuff are put out there, even as potential suspects. Absolutely. And it goes just absolutely nuts. Like, I'm trying to imagine how I, like, what my life would be like if I came out as a potential, like, a potential suspect in a murder case. Yeah. Oh, my God. Life would be over. Yeah. How would you move on from that? I...

You'd feel like, cause even if you're like proven innocent in a court of law or they like the police come out and say, there's always going to be that stigma or that. Oh, there's always going to be people that still believe it. Yeah. Cause people are insane.

The case and investigation has become staple in Japanese pop culture and it continues to be popular cases that are still regularly talked about. Since there are no legal consequences for the thief of the crime, it makes you wonder if he'll ever come forward. Since it's been so long since the statute of limitations has been lifted, it seems unlikely. I mean, it's been 60 years since then and he would have been like 20, maybe 2030s at the time of the robbery. He could be passed away by now. Yeah, he's gone.

I don't think we'll ever find out. What do you think? Oh, I don't know. It's, I do like, like you were saying before, I feel like boy S is probably. The most likely. The most likely. At least out of the suspects we talked about. Out of the two majors, like main sort of major suspects we talked about. Yeah. And he was part of the gang. So I, it probably wasn't just him involved, but you know, because their eyes were on him and the police were investigating him, like we know his father was a police officer.

That would have brought a lot of shame onto the family. More than it already sort of did. Yeah. If he was found out to be guilty. Yeah. That would have been very shameful. Yeah. We're talking about like a culture here or a society where even just being labeled as a potential suspect in this or even just failing at the investigation led to a lot of suicides. Now imagine you're the father of... Sorry, you're...

You're a police officer and your son is found out to be this mastermind criminal who everyone in society hates. Because yeah, I mean, thievery of that degree in Japan, Japanese culture is probably like heavily scrutinized by the hardworking people. Yeah, I feel like just that level of shame to know that your son did this. Yeah. And how your life would never be the same. Yeah. It's not directly saying that.

you know, his father had anything to do with maybe his possible suicide or something like that. But it does raise questions and suspicions. No, to me, it like kind of, yeah, it kind of puts it all into greater impact. The kind of the fight, the arguments, the family dynamics that would have gone on place. So even if the father didn't like directly kill or try to force the boy S into suicide,

uh perhaps just the like the living conditions and all the stress and everything but we'll live with boy s and that was just all he could take because i want like he might have had a lot of other things going on you know he yeah what other crimes what are the crimes you know we know that he was involved in other crimes organized crime yeah was in a gang and you know we don't know if the other people in his gang were being investigated but it seems like

the biggest eyes were on him. Yeah. And he was taking that on and that could have just been, could have been it. Yeah. He's clearly knows he's under investigation now. Yeah. And I feel like he would have felt backed into a corner or trapped. He couldn't go talk to his friends because obviously that would look bad. Yeah. And also who knows what, if you're an organized crime, who knows what kind of impact that could have on you in that situation.

That circle as well environment. Maybe they start to think you're a rat Maybe he thinks his life is already over now because he's his friends are gonna want to kill him themselves You know, there's so many different maybe he just saw that as the easiest way out. Yeah Yeah, I I do think that boy s is probably the most likely I definitely most likely out of the people that we discussed. Yeah, I

No, but it is an interesting case in how you were saying, you know, we start by going, you know, there's no real violence and there is no direct fist to fist gun violence to this at all. But it's funny that the repercussions of this case, either from being investigated or

or failing to investigate led to so much tragedy. Yeah. Across the board. Yeah. It's kind of crazy to think about how something like that can affect so many people broadly. Something so simple as just a bank heist that's just like throwing a flower at a car kind of. Yeah. And then, yeah. And where is the money? Here we are talking about 60 years. Yeah, we still don't know where the money is. Where is the money? Buried somewhere. Maybe. Yeah. I mean, if the person is dead and they were never able to make it clean, then it would just be buried somewhere. Yeah.

We'll have to do a bit of investigating while we're in Japan. Maybe we'll find it. We should go see some of the places we talked about during this episode, maybe when we're in Tokyo. Yeah, maybe if we're nearby. Yeah.

Yeah, follow me on Instagram. I'll post a picture if I go there. That's going to do it for this episode of Red Thread. Thank you very much for joining us. Thank you for joining us, Kira, on this episode. Thank you for having me. And thank you so much for writing our documents. We really do appreciate it, all three of us. You do a fantastic job, obviously. For this one in particular, also a big thank you to Critical Archive. Yes, thank you so much. For compiling it. Very helpful. Yeah. Very helpful. Yeah, really do appreciate it. Big, big thanks to Kira.

big source of help while we you know gear up for this holiday break that we're taking we've been very hectic yeah there's been a lot going on behind the scenes just getting everything ready so thank you very much and when's this coming out?

This should be at like middle of January. Well, I hope everyone had a lovely Christmas and New Year's. Welcome to 2025. Yeah, let's kill it. Holy shit. I know. Holy fuck. It's 2025. Pipe. Yeah. So, hope you guys had a good Christmas. You can head on over to official.men or

Or, yeah, official.men for ad-free early access to all of the official network series. That's Red Thread. That's this show. You get it early and ad-free. As well as Criminally Stupid, the official podcast. Real Boys. Real Boys.

Yep, you'll get all of those. We'll be back. Oh, and you also get access. You get 15% off merchandise. There's a Red Thread shirt here on screen. It's so comfy. It is comfy. I love it, and I'm stealing it after this. Yeah, Red Thread merch. You can go check that out. Very comfortable shirt. Fantastic.

Go check that out at official.men. There's a store up top. If you're a member, $5 a month, then you get the discount. Or you can just buy the shirt without being a member as well. But if you want that discount,

official.men get the membership you get a lot of content daily uploads pretty much at this point we got like four series going out weekly so every single day of the work week we'll keep you company at work should we vlog japan vlog japan yeah no i want to enjoy japan okay i'm i'm not doing any work over there the most i'll do is take some photos for my instagram but that is it

I'm living in the moment over there. Yeah. We'll be out buried in the snow. Yeah. It's going to be so cold. It's going to be so great. Thank you very much, guys, for joining us. We really do appreciate it. And we'll see you next time in Red Thread. Bye, guys. Bye.