HONG KONG (AP) — Six people have been arrested in Hong Kong in connection with a $3 million jewelry store heist in Japan, police said Saturday.
Three men and three women were taken into custody Thursday and Friday at two different Hong Kong apartments where investigators found hundreds of watches, pieces of jewelry and cash worth about $3.2 million, police spokeswoman Baisy Wong said.
The watches and jewelry are believed to be the same items stolen last week from a jewelry shop in Tokyo’s upscale Ginza district, where burglars bored a 16 to 20 inch (40 to 50 centimeter) hole through one of the store’s concrete walls.
Five of the suspects were charged with handling stolen goods and the sixth was held on allegations of handling stolen goods and money laundering, Wong said.
Hong Kong organized crime investigators made the arrests after contacting Japanese authorities, she said.
All but one of the suspects is from Hong Kong; the sixth is from mainland China.
Police suspect many of the watches were mailed from Japan to Hong Kong, with some then sent to mainland China.