Men matching the descriptions of two robbers who stole 3.5 billion yen worth of jewelry from a store in Tokyo's Ginza district last week have left Japan from Narita and Kansai airports, police sources said Thursday.
They added that one of the men had a Croatian passport.
The sources at the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department said that one of the men had left Japan from Narita on the afternoon of March 5, the day the robbery took place, in the company of a woman. They added that the two had stayed at a hotel in Tokyo before the jewelry store, Le Supre-Diamant Couture de Maki, was robbed.
The other man departed from Kansai airport the following morning, they said, adding that they both boarded flights bound for Paris.
The men looked very much like the robbers, whose image was captured on surveillance cameras at the store.
The man and woman who left from Narita are believed to have visited the store in late February, the sources said, adding that police believe the woman also knows something about the crime.
The robbers, described by police as Caucasian, entered the store at 11:45 a.m. on March 5. They fired pepper spray at a clerk and then smashed glass showcases with a hammer.
They stole 12 pieces of jewelry, including a 3 billion yen necklace featuring 116 diamonds, which had been the store's prized item since its opening in 1991.
Witnesses told police the men were aged about 35 to 40 and apparently wearing wigs.