Photo/Illutration Despite countermeasures, an outdoor air-conditioner unit was stolen from this meeting-place facility in Shiraoka, Saitama Prefecture, in May. (Provided by Shoji Inoue)

Thefts of outdoor air-conditioning units have soared mainly in suburban areas of the Kanto region, and police are struggling to find ways to track down the perpetrators.

The National Police Agency says rising copper prices are likely behind the thefts, considering copper pipes are typically used in outdoor units.

However, some of the stolen goods may be sold on the black market to buyers seeking cheaper ways to beat the summer heat.

According to the NPA, 255 outdoor air-conditioning units were stolen nationwide in 2020.

The number has since doubled each year, to 442 in 2021, 819 in 2022, 1,717 in 2023, and 3,397 in 2024.

Last year, 594 outdoor air-conditioning units were stolen in Ibaraki, the most among prefectures, followed by 563 in Saitama, 402 in Chiba and 259 in Gunma.

Tokyo had 60 theft cases while Osaka had 101, showing that the thieves avoided urban areas where their actions might be more easily seen, police said.

STICKY SITUATION

Chiba prefectural police have devised a method that has led to at least one arrest of a suspected air-conditioner thief.

Thefts of air conditioners became noticeable around spring 2023 in Choshi in the prefecture. The Choshi Police Station, however, found few leads in the cases.

Most of the stolen units were likely dismantled for metal parts, meaning the evidence essentially disappeared.

Police did find intact air conditioners that were likely stolen, but they were unable to identify the victims because people generally do not take note of the serial or model numbers of their outdoor units, investigators said.

In April 2024, officers from the public safety division of Choshi Police Station came up with a countermeasure based on anti-theft registration stickers on bicycles.

They started working with the city government to create stickers featuring the serial numbers of air conditioners and asked residents to place them on their outdoor units.

If these units were stolen, police would have a way to track them down and identify their proper owners.

The stickers were bright yellow and made of durable material. They had “Choshi Police Station” and “Choshi Municipal Government” written on them to act as a deterrence.

From around May 2024, police distributed more than 200 stickers to residents mainly in areas with high theft rates.

In an “aha” moment in April this year, a police officer found a yellow sticker attached to an outdoor unit amid a pile of about 50 air conditioners at a scrap metal store in Asahi, Chiba Prefecture.

Asahi is located next to Choshi.

The discovery prompted an investigation, and a 65-year-old unemployed man emerged as a suspect.

Although police did not have enough evidence to arrest him over the sticker-carrying air conditioner, he was thrown in the cooler over the theft of a different air-conditioning unit outside a store in Choshi.

In May, the suspect was rearrested on suspicion of stealing another air conditioner.

“The ingenious measures put in place by our officers achieved success,” an official at the Choshi Police Station said. “We will continue to advise people to be cautious.”

The police station said it has another mechanism to track down stolen air conditioners if the thieves remove the stickers.

However, it did not provide details.

(This article was written by Daichi Itakura, Hayato Honda, Takashi Uematsu and Minaho Serizawa.)

Related News