Japan hunts person who threatened to bomb schools, ‘kill’ students in fax messages
- Police say all the faxes came from the same number in Tokyo, and sent between 3am and 4am, but no explosives found and no reports of attacks on pupils or staff
- Bomb threats seem unsophisticated and reminiscent of scams by organised crime groups a few years ago that targeted elderly people, analyst notes
Japanese police are trying to identify a person who threatened to bomb hundreds of schools across the country, or kill students and teachers with home-made weapons.
The threats were sent via fax messages on Monday and Tuesday to schools from Hokkaido in the far north to the city of Hiroshima. The sender demanded that schools send 3 million yen (US$23,000) and universities transfer 300,000 yen to a specified bank account.
Police were called in to search school and university buildings, while officers were stationed outside the entrances to many facilities. No explosives had been found, police said, and there were no reports of attacks on pupils or staff.
Police also revealed that the faxes all came from the same number in Tokyo and were sent between 3am and 4am.
The scale of the attempted extortion has attracted attention – even as the use of faxes suggests the attempts are relatively unsophisticated. Some online commentators have even mocked the extortionist for relying on technology from the 1970s.
“Using a fax machine to make a bomb threat is simultaneously the most Japanese and the most idiotic thing I have read in a while,” read one message on the JapanToday website. “I have no doubt the investigation will be short and turn up a very disturbed individual.”