OSAKA (TR) – A male jewellery store clerk in the Shinsaibashi area of Osaka City died after being stabbed during a daytime robbery on Wednesday afternoon. Police later apprehended a 27-year-old male Chinese national on suspicion of robbery and murder. According to police, the perpetrator pretended to be a customer at jewellery store Tokioka as he entered the store.
He asked the clerk, 30-year-old Tatsuya Hironaka, to show him a Patek Philippe watch valued at around 62.8 million yen, reports Nippon News Network (Aug. 8).
The discussion was conducted in Chinese. Negotiations continued in a private room for about five to 10 minutes. Thereafter, the perpatrator pulled out a knife, grabbed the watch and bolted the store.
The perpetrator stood up to 175 centimeters tall. He had a shaved head and wore a mask and sunglasses, police said. As he fled, he stabbed the Hironaka in the abdomen.
The victim was rushed to a hospital in an unconscious state but was later confirmed dead, police said. At just after 4 p.m.
, Osaka Prefectural Police arrested Ko Gyoha at Kansai International Airport on suspicion of attempted robbery and attempted murder. The suspect admitted to the charges, saying, “I stole the watch from the store clerk and stabbed him with a knife.” The charges were later changed to robbery and murder, reports the Sankei Shimbun (Aug.
7). Police believe Ko was attempting to flee the country via the airport. During the alleged crime, the suspect is believed to have been wearing a hairpiece that made him appear to have a shaved head.
By the time of his apprehension, he had removed the hairpiece. He was also in possession of a luxury watch. A bloodstained knife was found in the hedge of a vacant lot near the store where the incident occurred.
Police are investigating whether it was the murder weapon. “He was running,” a witness said of the suspect as he fled. “He had a shaved head and was holding a knife in his right hand.
It looked like a knife, a big knife, like a normal kitchen knife. [The perpetrator] was quite big. He was tall and big.
” “He came out of the store in a hurry,” another witness said, “and I was right in front of him when he fell over because he was in such a hurry.” The incident occurred in the Shinsaibashi-Suji Shopping Arcade. According to the shopping arcade promotion association, it stretches for about 580 meters from north to south and is lined with about 140 stores, including apparel and brand shops.
In recent years, it has become crowded with foreign tourists visiting Japan..
