CRIMEJAPAN
Japan: Hundreds of rentable luxury watches go missing
Matt Ford
39 minutes ago39 minutes ago
Hundreds of luxury watches worth millions of dollars have been reported missing in Japan after an online rental platform folded. The owner of the website has fled to Dubai, according to local media.
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A Quark-Rolex shop in Tokyo, Japan
Around 900 luxury watches, such as the ones sold at this Rolex outlet in Tokyo, have gone missing in JapanImage: David Mareuil/AA/picture alliance
Police in Japan are engaged in a race against time to return around 900 luxury watches worth almost $13 million (€11.9 million) to their owners after a timepiece rental service closed down, local media reported on Thursday.
Toke Match, a watch rental site based in the central Japanese city of Osaka, was set up to loan Rolexes, Omegas, Tag Heuers, and other expensive watches from wealthy owners and rent them on to customers.
The company that operated Toke Match, Neo Reverse, terminated its service on January 31, promising to return all deposited watches.
But, according to Japanese public broadcaster NHK, police in 13 prefectures, including Tokyo and Osaka, are now investigating after receiving over 40 complaints from around 190 watch owners who say they have not been reunited with their property.
Some of the watches have been spotted on online resale sites, with one operator, Valuence, telling the AFP news agency that at least 20 watches it had handled had serial numbers matching those loaned to Toke Match.
Japan’s ‘sharing economy’
According to the Sharing Economy Association Japan (SEAJ), of which Neo Reverse was a member, some of the watches are also being traded in second-hand stores.
A “sharing economy” is a system in which people share in the conception, production, distribution, trade and consumption of goods and services.
A report from the University of Sheffield in the United Kingdom said in 2022 that, on the face of it, Japan was not well suited to the development of such revolutionary economic ideas as a sharing economy.
But recent SEAJ figures suggest the Japanese sharing economy is in fact growing, worth 2.6 trillion yen ($17 billion, €15.6 billion) in 2023.
Police searching for Toke Match owner
Meanwhile, the clock is ticking.
NHK says it visited an apartment building in Osaka where Toke Match was reportedly based but said there was no reply from the intercom. They are also yet to receive a response to a request for an interview.
According to the Japanese Jiji Press news agency, Tokyo police have obtained an arrest warrant for Toke Match’s owner Takazumi Kominato on suspicion of embezzlement of a Rolex.
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Kominato, 42, is suspected of selling the Rolex he loaned from an owner to a second-hand dealer for 650,000 yen ($4,400) in January. But he has refused to hand himself in and instead fled to Dubai at the end of February, according to Jiji.
Elsewhere, police in the western Fukuoka Prefecture are looking for a man who stole three luxury watches from a pawn shop in Koga City on Monday.
According to Kyodo News, a man threatened an employee with a hammer-like object before smashing a glass showcase and taking three luxury watches. Police say no one was injured and the culprit fled on foot.
DW Matthew Ford SportsDW Matthew Ford Sports
Matt Ford Reporter for DW News
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