Apparently this fire chief had a lot of time on his hands…
Police from the Tokyo city of Hachioji have arrested a man in Kanagawa Prefecture who allegedly scammed a woman out of three swimsuits by telling her he was collecting swimsuits for poor swim teams in foreign countries.
According to Hachioji police, in April of this year, Takumi Murakami, a 30-year-old fire chief at a fire station in the Kanagawa city of Hiratsuka, used Facebook to contact a 26-year-old woman living in Hachioji in attempt to trick her into giving him her used swimsuits.
In his message Murakami reportedly told the woman “Do you have any athletic swimsuits that you are not using? I’m collecting swimsuits for swim teams in foreign countries that can’t afford to buy their own, so I’d be very grateful if you could help me.”
The woman Murakami contacted did not give him any of her swimsuits, however, in May a friend of the woman, also in her 20s, gave Murakami three of hers. Shortly thereafter, one of the woman found that the donated swimsuits were being sold via the virtual marketplace app Mercari. When confronted Murakami admitted to to lying and selling the donated swimsuits.
Police arrested Murakami on charges of fraud. He has admitted to the charges saying “I wanted to make some extra spending money.” He has also admitted to having done this before a number of times.
According to Hachioji police each swimsuit was being sold for 2,500 JPY, which is approximately 22.50 in US dollars.
If you would like to see a CG recreation of this story, check out the TomoNews Japan video below.
Source: Sankei News (7/26/17), TomoNews Japan
Image: Pixabay
