Two Vietnamese Nationals Arrested Over 136 Thefts of Agricultural Spraying Equipment Across Tochigi, Gunma, and Saitama
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A joint investigation team from the prefectural police of Tochigi, Gunma, and Saitama arrested and referred to prosecutors a Vietnamese man and woman on suspicion of theft, alleging they repeatedly stole items — mainly agricultural spraying equipment — from vinyl greenhouses across the three prefectures between around October 2025 and around February 25, 2026. The thefts across the three prefectures are said to total 136 incidents with combined damages of roughly 17 million yen, of which 22 incidents occurred within Tochigi Prefecture.
This was a series of thefts spanning a wide area, and the three prefectural police forces investigated jointly. Current status: The case is at the referral stage, and whether prosecutors will file charges had not been determined as of this writing.
Setting up a joint investigation team across three prefectural police forces is a commonly used approach for tackling wide-ranging serial crime that a single prefectural police force would struggle to handle alone. With 136 incidents and roughly 17 million yen in damages, this ranks as a large-scale case among thefts targeting agricultural equipment.
A similarly wide-ranging theft case involved a trio of Thai nationals accused of committing 167 burglaries of vacant homes across 11 prefectures (related coverage), and crackdowns on organized, wide-ranging theft groups made up of foreign nationals have been occurring one after another across the country.