A 35-year-old man arrested for breaking into a junior high school in Takaoka, Toyama Prefecture, and stealing insoles from students' indoor shoes is believed to have carried out similar thefts at more than 30 elementary, junior high and high schools in and outside the prefecture, police said.
Police seized 451 insoles from the home and bag of the suspect, Daisuke Matsuzaki, who has no fixed address and is unemployed. All of them belonged to schoolgirls, and police believe they were taken from the 30-plus schools.
Matsuzaki was arrested last month on suspicion of entering a public junior high school in Takaoka and stealing eight insoles, four pairs, from students' shoes. He admitted the allegation, saying he took them from shoe lockers, according to the report.
Police searched the home in Takaoka where he was living at the time and seized the insoles. In subsequent questioning he said he had been doing it since junior high school, that he began in earnest about two years ago, and that he chose what to steal by looking at the internet and TV.
Police believe he collected the insoles to satisfy his own desires rather than to resell them, and are continuing to investigate other possible offenses.
Open windows, unlocked doors
The case has drawn attention to how accessible school buildings are. In a separate incident, police who stopped a man near a junior high school before dawn found a student's shoe insole in his jacket pocket, and he was sent to prosecutors. He is believed to have entered through an unlocked sliding window, and similar damage has been reported at high schools and junior high schools in Toyama Prefecture.