By Richard Lloyd Parry
February 03, 2009
LIKE most elderly Japanese, Tsutomu Watanabe was a steady and cautious saver and, like many of them, he never had much time for banks.
Ten years ago, when Japanese interest rates sank close to zero, he withdrew his life's savings and took them home. The fear of fires and earthquakes made Mr Watanabe uncomfortable about keeping his cash in the house. So he buried it in the back garden.
Now and then he added to his hoard; every morning he checked that the earth above it was undisturbed, until one cold night this winter when thieves came and dug up the lot. None of this would be particularly surprising if it were not for the size of the old man's nest egg: 360 million yen, or £2.85 million. Mr Watanabe's savings were not just a buried biscuit tin: they filled several containers and weighed 36kg.
The sad story says much about Japanese attitudes to savings, risk, and crime. No nation is so assiduous in saving, as opposed to investing, than the Japanese. In 2007 they held an estimated 1,544 trillion yen of individual financial assets, and half of that went into savings accounts of different kinds.
The story was so incredible that it took the police time to verify the facts, and they only announced the case in the past few days. Mr Watanabe (not his real name, which is being withheld) was in his eighties.
It remained undisturbed until last October, when he spotted the theft. It may be an inside job: the old man had told members of his extended family where he kept his cash. Either way, the shock, stress and embarrassment seem to have been too much to bear. In December, a few weeks after the theft had been discovered, Mr Watanabe died.
Abridged
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This story has captured world-wide media attention because of its unusual setting.
It is a crime against the elderly man. No wonder that he died just a few weeks after the theft.
We must remember that those who abused the elderly, psychologically or emotionally, leave very little evidence of their abuses. Many of such victims are reluctant to report the crimes. These victims often suffer in silence; especially if their abuser is a member of their family.
A common response from authorities, to such cases - "...they are too difficult to investigate....we just do not have the time or resources."
We must continue to highlight these cases.
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