Photo/Illutration Investigators with the Kanagawa prefectural police check on the home of a 75-year-old resident who was found murdered on Oct. 16. (Tatsuya Shimada)

Police looking for a common thread in a spate of recent home break-ins in the greater Tokyo metropolitan area are focusing on vendors going door to door proposing unnecessary roof repairs.

What has puzzled police investigators is that the group committing the robberies in Tokyo and its three neighboring prefectures appear to know exactly which homes to target.

Because the homes are located over a wide area and the crimes were committed over the past two months or so, police believe the group somehow found out beforehand what assets were held at the homes of the victims and where the loot was kept.

In one incident in Tokyo, the group tied up the female resident and made off with a large amount of cash she kept at home.

According to the Metropolitan Police Department, the woman allowed a company to carry out home improvement work after a representative turned up at her door offering unsolicited advice. Police had already designated the company as a shady enterprise. The woman paid for the expensive work with cash she kept at home.

A common scam is for homeowners to be told extensive repairs are needed to avert even greater damage. In the most egregious cases, the representative causes the damage claimed to have been found on the roof.

Visiting other homes in the neighborhood of the Tokyo woman who was robbed led to other residents saying they had been visited by a similar home repair company salesperson.

A woman in her 50s said three men claiming to work for a home repair company paid her a visit in either March or April. After she allowed them to check her roof, she was told there was only a slight amount of damage that required repair work. Although the woman declined their offer, she asked another company a few days later to check on the roof. The second company said no repair work was needed.

A 50-year-old resident of Ichikawa, Chiba Prefecture, was abducted from her home on Oct. 17, but rescued by police hours later in Saitama Prefecture.

Neighbors of the victim also said they were visited recently by individuals purporting to work for home repair companies.

A man in his 60s living nearby said a man in work clothes turned up at the door earlier this year saying he was willing to repair a loose roof tile.

“I felt as though he was also looking around inside my home,” the man said. “I wonder if there was some connection with the recent incident.”

A 75-year-old man living in Yokohama was found slain at his home on Oct. 16. Other homes in the neighborhood also received visits between two and three months ago regarding unsolicited offers to make home repairs.

While police still have not established a direct link between the string of crimes and visits by supposed home repair companies, they say it could explain how information about the victimized homes somehow reached the group of robbers.

(This article was written by Hiromichi Fujita, Shun Yoshimura and Shomei Nagatsuma.)

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