Armored Car Hit for $2 Million in Japan’s Largest Cash Heist
Two men wearing motorcycle helmets attacked an armored car driver in downtown Tokyo today and escaped through morning rush-hour traffic with $2 million, police said. It was Japan’s largest cash robbery.
“It happened in a moment,” a police official said. The robbers remained at large tonight.
The police official said the driver opened the armored car’s rear door at Mitsubishi Bank’s Urakucho branch to unload aluminum cases of cash and sacks of securities while his assistant delivered documents.
The robbers approached the car, hit the driver in the head with “something hard,” sprayed his face with a chemical and escaped with the cash in a stolen white van driven by an accomplice, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
In Japan, where such robberies are rare, armored car drivers by law do not carry guns.
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