A group of five people carrying cash in suitcases was attacked with pepper spray on a street in Tokyo¡¯s Ueno district on Thursday evening, with the suspects still at large and the group claiming around ?423 million ($2.75 million) had been stolen.
A few hours later, a group carrying around ?190 million in suitcases was also attacked with pepper spray at Haneda Airport, although the suspects fled without taking anything.
Police are searching for the suspects and investigating the two cases, which they believe are related. The people transporting large sums of money in both locations said that they were in the money exchange business and were delivering the cash to locations in China and Hong Kong.
According to the Metropolitan Police Department, three Japanese and two Chinese people in their 20s to 40s were loading three suitcases into a car at around 9:30 p.m. Thursday when a group of three people attacked them, took the suitcases and fled the scene together in a car.
A man who claims to be the person in charge of the cash delivery, who was at the scene, told the police that their job was to deliver yen in cash to Hong Kong via Haneda Airport and exchange it for Hong Kong dollars, adding that he asked the group to take the money to Haneda.
Around the same time as the Ueno incident, a 50-year-old passerby sustained minor injuries in a hit-and-run around 100 meters away from the site. The car was found abandoned on a street approximately 500 meters from where the accident occurred. Police think the car might have been used in the robbery in Ueno, according to media reports.
Several hours later at around 12:10 a.m. on Friday, a Japanese man in his 50s who had two suitcases containing cash in a car called the police saying that he was attacked with pepper spray at a parking lot adjacent to Terminal 3 of Tokyo¡¯s Haneda Airport.
The man told police that he was on his way to China to deliver the money. There were three other people in the car.
A white car carrying three people reportedly approached the man in the parking lot before the person sitting in the back seat sprayed pepper spray at him, causing injury to his eyes. However, the trio fled without taking anything.
Immediately before that incident, there was a failed purse-snatching attempt on the same floor of the parking lot. The police suspect that the victim was targeted in a case of mistaken identity, according to media reports.
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