Robbers score record ¥604 million haul in Tachikawa

Two men broke into a security company office in the western Tokyo suburb of Tachikawa early Thursday and made off with ¥604 million, pulling off the biggest robbery in Japanese history, police said.

The previous record was set by a ¥542.5 million robbery at a transportation company in Tochigi Prefecture in October 2004.

The police said two young masked men entered the security firm's office on the first floor of a four-story condominium at about 3 a.m.

After beating the security guard with an iron pipe and stabbing him to get the combination for the vault, they put the cash into 70 bags and fled, the police said.

"This could've been much worse," said Teruo Kitazawa, assistant manager at Nichigetsu's downtown Tokyo office. The guard, 36, was stabbed several times and was hospitalized in serious condition, he said in a telephone interview.

Nichigetsu's Tachikawa office was holding cash for delivery to replenish reserves at local branches of Japan Post Network Co., said Atsushi Sakaida, a spokesman at the former state-run postal monopoly that also operates Japan's largest bank.

Japan Post has commissioned the company for deliveries in the past, he said by phone, declining to say how often.

"We trusted Nichigetsu and this is a great pity," Sakaida said.