Police have arrested a 22-year-old man in connection with the murder of a 75-year-old man found bound and dead in his Yokohama home last week.
The suspect, identified as Mazuki Takarada, a self-declared sole proprietor from the city of Inzai, Chiba Prefecture, was arrested on Saturday.
He has reportedly confessed to the charges against him. "There’s no mistake," he said during questioning. Takarada's arrest is the first in the connection with the Yokohama death. His case was transferred to prosecutors Sunday.
Takarada revealed that he applied for a job promising "quick money" on social media, claiming he owed several hundred thousand yen in taxes. He said that he was reluctant to participate in the crime once he realized its nature, but feared the potential harm that might have come to his family had he backed out.
Kanagawa Prefectural Police are urgently working to identify the mastermind behind the crime and investigate its links to a series of robberies in the Tokyo metropolitan area involving participants recruited through social media for yami baito, or “dark” part-time jobs.
According to investigators, Takarada, having communicated with the mastermind through a secure messaging app, picked up two accomplices in his black minivan while en route to the crime scene. It is believed he had no prior acquaintance with the accomplices.
Authorities allege that on or around Tuesday, Takarada and his accomplices broke into the Yokohama home of Hiroharu Goto, assaulted him, and took approximately ¥200,000 ($1,340). In addition to the cash, several items including a necklace, valued at about ¥300,000, were also reported missing from the scene.
Goto was discovered Wednesday morning at his home, bound and gagged with duct tape. He sustained multiple injuries consistent with being struck with a blunt object and had visible fractures. The cause of death was determined to be blood loss due to blunt force trauma. Police found several shoe prints inside the residence.
Kanagawa Prefectural Police are investigating the Yokohama case for a possible connection with another robbery that happened last week in the city of Ichikawa, Chiba Prefecture.
In that case, a woman age 50 was beaten up and abducted by a group of men who allegedly stole her family's cash and a car on Thursday. Police found the woman later that day and arrested a 26-year-old suspect, Shu Fujii, who was with her.
Fujii's fingerprints were discovered on the duct tape used on Goto's face, leading police to suspect that he might have been one of the accomplices in the Yokohama case.
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