Victim in Haneda robbery attempt in Japan had $779k stolen in 2025

TOKYO – One of the four victims involved in a recent robbery attempt at a carpark at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport had been targeted twice before and had foreign currencies worth 95 million yen (S$778,600) stolen in Tokyo in November, an investigative source said on Feb 2.

Tokyo police are investigating any links between the Haneda case early on Jan 30 and a theft and an incident involving a car in 2025, as two of the victims at the airport are believed to have been attacked by robbers again after travelling to Hong Kong.

In the Haneda case, four men, said to have been in possession of 190 million yen, were attacked by another group of four, although nothing was stolen. Two of the victims – a man in his 20s, who is now believed to have been an accomplice, and another in his 50s – then headed to Hong Kong with the cash.

The three-time target, a man in his 30s, has explained to the police that they were “transporting cash earned by selling gold purchased from dealers almost every day to money exchangers in Hong Kong”.

According to the investigative source, on the night of Nov 20, 2025, in Tokyo’s Chuo Ward, seven different foreign currencies, including US dollars and euro, were stolen from a parked car, after its window had been broken.

The man’s car was also broken into on Nov 26, 2025, at Haneda Airport, but nothing was stolen, the source said.

The police suspect that the attackers had inside information on the hefty cash transportation.

They are also investigating a case in which seven people were robbed on a street in the capital’s Ueno district in January of suitcases that the victims said contained around 420 million yen in cash. The victims have said they were on their way to take the cash to Hong Kong to exchange into other currencies.

According to currency exchange experts, Hong Kong, as an international financial centre, offers various exchange rates that allows customers to pick and choose which is best for their transaction. But money is usually transported by dedicated security companies or by wire transfers through bank accounts, given the risks of taking large sums of money overseas.

Following the incident at Haneda, a bag containing about 51 million yen was stolen from outside a currency exchange outlet in Hong Kong on Jan 30, leading to the arrest of six people.

A Hong Kong court on Feb 2 did not grant bail to four of the six suspects, including three Japanese nationals, when they made their first court appearance.

Given the “seriousness of the case”, all four were remanded in custody pending trial, said Principal Magistrate David Cheung of Hong Kong’s Eastern Magistrates’ Courts, adjourning the case until April 14 for further police investigation.

The four suspects – three Japanese men and one woman from China aged between 23 and 52 – have been charged with conspiracy to rob a 51-year-old Japanese man of a backpack containing the cash.

According to the police, two of the Japanese men in their 20s allegedly snatched the bag after the victim got out of a taxi in the Sheung Wan commercial district on the morning of Jan 30.

The two men, along with the Chinese woman, 52, suspected of assisting in the crime, were arrested later in the afternoon at Hong Kong International Airport.

The third Japanese man arrested in the case was a 27-year-old who accompanied the victim on the taxi ride and reported the robbery. Police believe he was an accomplice who provided inside information.

The victim, reportedly a worker at a precious metals dealer, had attempted to exchange yen for foreign currency to purchase precious metals and declared upon entering Hong Kong that he was carrying a large amount of cash.

The two other male suspects – a Hong Kong resident and a Chinese national – who were arrested on suspicion of helping to handle some of the stolen money were earlier granted bail pending further investigation and were required to report to police in early March. KYODO NEWS