Overview
- The Metropolitan Police Department and the Saitama, Chiba, and Kanagawa prefectural forces announced the arrests of four men in their 20s on suspicion of robbery resulting in injury and residential intrusion linked to a 2024 home invasion in Ichikawa, Chiba.
- Investigators said roughly 750 smartphones were analyzed to map instruction channels and identify the suspected coordinators behind the dark‑recruitment robberies.
- Police characterize the groups as Tokuryu, in which overseas‑based figures direct rotating domestic executors via encrypted, ephemeral apps like Signal, complicating digital evidence recovery.
- Separately, scrutiny of detention oversight intensified after Fukuoka Detention Center did not disclose a detainee’s death that should have been announced under Justice Ministry guidelines, according to reporting.
- Other investigations are active, including a Dec. 4 robbery with injuries at a Nobeoka gas station under police inquiry and a 2000 Hiroshima murder case where new testing detected DNA from someone other than the victim, according to investigative sources.