Police plan to split the ¥10 million reward among multiple informants who helped lead to the Tuesday evening collar of Tatsuya Ichihashi in Osaka, marking the first such payout since the bounty system was introduced in April 2007, a National Police Agency official said.

The ¥10 million is the highest offered among the 17 cases for which the NPA currently offers bounties, ranging from ¥1 million for information about identified suspects to ¥3 million for those who are unidentified.

Though thought to be a somewhat difficult practice to gain acceptance, the NPA turned to the system to resolve the apparent lack of information on crimes amid an increasing number of unsolved cases, said Akio Kuroki, a freelance journalist with 23 years of service at the Metropolitan Police Department.