TV Crews Film Killing of Possible Gold Swindler

The head of a gold firm being investigated for alleged improper deals was stabbed to death today by two men who broke into his house in full view of television crews, police said.

Television cameras recorded the scene as the two men smashed their way into the Osaka home of Kazuo Nagano, head of the Toyota Shoji company, which had been accused by lawyers of cheating its clients.

Minutes afterward, cameras filmed the two men emerging from the house flourishing a bloodstained army bayonet. Then Nagano was brought out on a stretcher and ambulance attendants pronounced him dead.

Police arrested Atsuo Iida, 56, owner of an iron-work factory, and Masakazu Yano, 30, a construction worker.

The cameramen and other journalists had spent days clustered outside Nagano’s home waiting for his comments on charges that his firm had swindled depositors, most of them elderly people, out of gold worth millions of dollars.