Police are set to arrest a Japanese man living in New York on suspicion of vandalizing a Chiba shrine with an oily liquid, police sources said Monday.
The 52-year-old man, who claims to be the founder of a religious body, is suspected of sprinkling the oily substance at Katori Shrine in Chiba Prefecture in late March and could be linked to numerous other cases of vandalism at shrines and temples nationwide, the sources said.
The shrine is among 48 cultural and religious sites, some of them World Heritage sites, in 16 prefectures that have been vandalized with an oily liquid in recent months.