Japan: €2.3m watches snatched in New Year heist

About 200 luxury watches worth 300 million yen (€2.3m) have been stolen from a jewellery shop in Tokyo’s exclusive Ginza district.

Shinya Watanabe, a spokesman for the Tokyo Metropolitan Police, said today investigators discovered a 40 to 50 centimetre hole in one of the store’s walls through which the watches are believed to have been removed.

Watanabe said it was unclear when the theft occurred, though a security guard monitoring the store, Tenshodo, did not notice anything unusual yesterday afternoon. Police have no witnesses but are interviewing employees at neighbouring stores for possible leads.

Watanabe said: “Whoever did this bored a hole into a concrete wall” and that “the noise must have been quite loud”.