OSAKA – A 39-year-old man was arrested Tuesday for allegedly extorting cigarette cartons from a convenience store owner, police said Wednesday. The man allegedly posted video footage of himself threatening the store owner on the Internet.
According to the Osaka Prefectural Police, Go Nakamura, from the city of Higashiosaka, visited the store, a Family Mart branch in the city of Ibaraki, Osaka Prefecture, at around 11:30 a.m. Monday.
Nakamura allegedly threatened workers at the store about a run-in earlier in the day between the clerks and his acquaintance, Fumiaki Nonaka, 46, in which Nonaka got angry after his demand that water be poured in his PET bottle was rejected.
As Nakamura visited the store, he demanded an apology over this incident while videotaping his exchange with clerks on his phone, according to police.
Later in the day, he visited the store again with Nonaka and two women, and yelled at the store owner for nearly 90 minutes. He allegedly recorded a video of himself making the owner and his father apologize in “dogeza” style, making them kneel on the floor and prostrate themselves, before posting the footage on the Internet.
Nakamura took away six cartons of cigarettes, worth ¥26,700, police said.
Nakamura, however, turned up at a police station on Tuesday after he “became frightened” by the uproar his footage caused on the Web, according to investigators.
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