Thieves made off with safes containing ¥6.7 million in two burglaries early Wednesday, targeting a supermarket in Kanagawa Prefecture and a restaurant in Aichi Prefecture, police said.
In Kanagawa, the roof and walls around the employee entrance at a supermarket in Ebina were found destroyed, apparently by heavy-duty construction equipment, and a safe containing about ¥2.7 million was missing, police said.
A local resident called police at around 3:20 a.m. to report that what appeared to be the arm of a piece of heavy machinery was sticking out of the supermarket.
The arm is about 4 meters long, and a truck was found nearby.
The resident saw several people in dark-colored knit hats and masks driving away from the site, the police said.
In Aichi, meanwhile, an alarm at a restaurant in Nisshin went off at around 3:15 a.m. Security guards found that a safe containing about ¥4 million was missing from the employee break room.
The safe was 35 cm wide and 45 cm long and weighed about 30 kg. The back door of the restaurant had been forced open, police said.