THE ASAHI SHIMBUN
October 20, 2024 at 13:14 JST
Mazuki Takarada is driven to the Yokohama Public Prosecutors Office from Aoba Police Station in Yokohama on Oct. 20. (Arisa Inaba)
Police announced the arrest of a 22-year-old suspect in a murder-robbery case in Yokohama that appears linked to a string of home break-ins that have terrorized households in the Kanto region since late August.
The suspect, Mazuki Takarada, a self-proclaimed private business owner, admitted to the allegations. He told Kanagawa prefectural police that two others helped carry out the crime in the city’s Aoba Ward.
Police referred the suspect early Oct. 20 to the Yokohama District Public Prosecutors Office.
Takarada told police he used his own car to drive to the home of 75-year-old Hiroharu Goto after receiving instructions from the “mastermind” of the criminal gang via a protected communications app.
The suspect was arrested Oct. 19 for conspiring to break into the property around Oct. 15 and killing Goto after assaulting him. Aside from stealing about 200,000 yen ($1,337) in cash, police say the group also took several necklaces and other items worth approximately 300,000 yen.
According to investigators, Goto was beaten in the face and upper body while his hands and feet were bound, and his mouth covered with adhesive tape. He died from loss of blood.
Security camera footage taken near Goto’s home showed a minivan driving away toward the main road in the early hours of Oct. 15, leading police to finger Takarada as a suspect. Police have seized the car and are combing the interior for clues.
Police also found footprints of more than two kinds of shoes at the crime scene.
Fingerprints recovered from the victim’s home apparently match those of Shu Fujii, 26, who was arrested Oct. 18 in a separate case in which a woman in her 50s was assaulted and abducted in Ichikawa, Chiba Prefecture.
The joint investigation headquarters, comprising officers from Tokyo’s Metropolitan Police Department and the Saitama, Chiba and Kanagawa prefectural police departments, was set up on Oct. 18.
It is investigating a string of robberies targeting stores and homes since August.
(This article was written by Arisa Inaba and Shuhei Nakajima.)
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