TOKYO – Three people have been arrested in Japan over unhygienic pranks at a conveyor-belt sushi restaurant after footage of their antics – dubbed “sushi terrorism” – sparked outrage online.

Police accused the young trio of seeking to obstruct business at a Kura Sushi outlet in the entertainment district of Sakae in Nagoya. The restaurant was bombarded with customer complaints after the video showing their pranks went viral.

The clip shows a member of the group grabbing a piece of sushi from a plate as it passes, shoving the whole morsel into the mouth and then drinking soya sauce directly from a communal bottle.

Similar videos filmed at different chains surfaced in February on platforms such as Twitter and TikTok, with some apparently weeks or even years old.

Other unsavoury pranks included customers touching moving pieces of sushi with a freshly licked finger, or sucking the rim of a teacup before placing it back on a shelf.

Local police told AFP on Thursday that three people from the central Aichi region had been arrested.

A police spokesman said 21-year-old Ryoga Yoshino and an unnamed 15-year-old girl were arrested on Wednesday, while the group’s third member, a 19-year-old man whose identity was withheld, was collared in February.

The arrests are believed to be the first in the saga that caused an uproar in Japan, a country with famously high standards of cleanliness.

The group’s antics forced employees at Kura Sushi to perform emergency cleaning, “making normal business operations difficult”, the police spokesman added.

While no charges have yet been filed, “forcible obstruction of business” can involve stiff penalties under Japanese law – including a potential three-year prison term.

The company that operates Kura Sushi, which has nearly 500 outlets in Japan, welcomed the arrests in a statement.

“We sincerely hope the arrests will spread awareness in society that these pranks, which fundamentally undermine our system based on a relationship of trust with customers, are a crime, and that there will be no copycat acts in future,” said the company.

Among other chains affected by the series of incidents is Sushiro, which saw its stock price plummet in February after a video showed a customer, who appeared to be a teenager, licking the top of a shared soya sauce bottle at one of its shops.

“This is sickening,” one Japanese Twitter user wrote in response at the time.

Another added: “I can’t go to conveyor belt sushi restaurants any more.” AFP