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Speaker 1: Hey, history fans, if you want a double dose of history,

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Speaker 1: here's a rerun for today, brought to you by Tracy V. Wilson.

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Speaker 1: We hope it makes previous episodes for this date easier

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Speaker 1: to find in the feed. Welcome to This Day in

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Speaker 1: History Class from how Stuff Works dot com and from

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Speaker 1: the desk of Stuff you missed in History Class. It's

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Speaker 1: the show where we explore the past one day at

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Speaker 1: a time with a quick look at what happened today

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Speaker 1: in history. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Christopher

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Speaker 1: haciotis your regular host. Tracy V. Wilson is out this week,

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Speaker 1: so thanks for having me. It's December and one of

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Speaker 1: the biggest heists in Japanese history happened on this day.

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Speaker 1: In just under three million yen was stolen from a

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Speaker 1: secure vehicle outside Tokyo. In that amount was worth around

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Speaker 1: eight hundred and twenty thousand U S dollars adjusted for inflation.

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Speaker 1: That would be like stealing the equivalent of six million

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Speaker 1: dollars in today's money. Here's how it all went down.

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Speaker 1: On December four, employees of the Nihon Shintaku Ginko Bank

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Speaker 1: were transporting this massive sum of cash. Security was tight,

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Speaker 1: as a bank manager had just days prior received threats

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Speaker 1: of explosives in the mail. The money was intended to

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Speaker 1: be used as bonuses for factory workers employed by technology

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Speaker 1: conglomerate Toshiba. The vehicle was traveling through Fuchu, the city

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Speaker 1: in the Greater Metro area of Tokyo where the factory

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Speaker 1: was located. A policeman riding a white Yamaha motorcycle stopped

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Speaker 1: the car just about a blocks distance from the factory gate.

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Speaker 1: The policeman informed the crew in the car that their

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Speaker 1: bank manager's house had been bombed and police had reason

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Speaker 1: to believe the car they were driving was likewise wired

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Speaker 1: with dynamite. As the four employees exited the car, the

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Speaker 1: policeman said he'd examined the underside of the vehicle, while

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Speaker 1: beneath the car, he discreetly set off a flare. The

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Speaker 1: four employees saw smoke and flames, and when they heard

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Speaker 1: the man, whom they believed to be a policeman, yelling

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Speaker 1: for them to run for safety, that's exactly what they did. He,

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Speaker 1: on the other hand, hopped in the car loaded with

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Speaker 1: cash and just drove off. The vehicle was later discovered

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Speaker 1: abandoned without either the cash or the driver within. The

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Speaker 1: ensuing investigation saw the Japanese police go all in. More

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Speaker 1: than a hundred and seventy thousand police officers and hundreds

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Speaker 1: of detectives were involved in the search for the thief.

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Speaker 1: Police collected more than a hundred and twenty pieces of

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Speaker 1: evidence at the crime scene, including the thief's abandoned police motorcycle,

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Speaker 1: which turned out to have been painted to look official

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Speaker 1: but wasn't. The security employees described the culprit Sketches were

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Speaker 1: made and circulated, and the hunt was on. More than

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Speaker 1: a hundred thousand people were interviewed in nineteen sixty eight

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Speaker 1: for the case. The first suspect was the nineteen year

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Speaker 1: old son of a motorcycle policeman, but just five days

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Speaker 1: after the robbery, the teenager died of potassium cyanide poisoning,

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Speaker 1: raising suspicions. The death, however, was ultimately ruled a suicide

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Speaker 1: and he wasn't implicated. A year later, at the end

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Speaker 1: of nineteen sixty nine, police arrested a twenty six year

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Speaker 1: old man on an unrelated charge. He resembled the composite

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Speaker 1: image created of the thief, but he too was ultimately

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Speaker 1: exonerated when he was able to prove he was taking

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Speaker 1: a test at the time of the robbery. On November fifteenth,

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Speaker 1: nineteen seventy five, just months before the seven year statute

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Speaker 1: of limitations was set to expire, police arrested a friend

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Speaker 1: of the nineteen year old first suspect. They'd found large

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Speaker 1: amounts of unexplained cash in his possession. In the end,

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Speaker 1: nothing came of that inquiry either, and the statute of

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Speaker 1: limitations on criminal charges was reached in December of nineteen

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Speaker 1: seventy five. A separate period of civil liability expired in

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Speaker 1: nineteen eighty eight. After that date, the thief would not

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Speaker 1: have been at the risk of any legal repercussions. He

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Speaker 1: could legally benefit from profits from the crime. He could

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Speaker 1: have written a book, for instance, or sold his story

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Speaker 1: to a TV station. A nineteen ninety nine investigation by

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Speaker 1: the newspaper shu Kan Joseki identified a potential suspect then

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Speaker 1: in his fifties. However, other publications found significant flaws with

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Speaker 1: that theory, and it was ultimately abandoned. As of the

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Speaker 1: recording of this episode half a century later, the case

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Speaker 1: remains unsolved. The culprit has never come forward and the

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Speaker 1: money remains lost for years. It was the largest robbery

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Speaker 1: in Japan's history. Most recently, it was surpassed by a

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Speaker 1: two thousand four robbery of five hundred million yen, which

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Speaker 1: was then surpassed by a two thousand and eleven robbery

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Speaker 1: where two masked men stole six hundred and four million

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Speaker 1: yen or about seven point four million dollars. But the

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Speaker 1: nineteen sixty eight robbery, the three hundred million yen robbery,

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Speaker 1: as it's known, remains the most notorious in the public's memory.

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Speaker 1: The original crime has inspired numerous books, articles, comics, and

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Speaker 1: TV shows, as well as the two thousand films on

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Speaker 1: Oku and ji Ken. Thanks to Kasey Pigrim and Chandler

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Speaker 1: Mays for their audio work on this show. You can

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Speaker 1: subscribe to This Day in History class on Apple Podcasts,

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Speaker 1: the I Heart Radio app, or wherever else you like

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Speaker 1: to find your podcasts. Come back tomorrow and we'll learn

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Speaker 1: about a royal trial. Do Nobo