Rapacious Japanese pantie collector mounts one snatch too many

By Ryann Connell
December 4, 2004

Fukuoka fuzz got the shock of their lives when a routine license check ended up delivering into their hands a notorious purloiner of putrid panties, according to Shukan Jitsuwa.

Cops found an incredible 145 pairs of nicked knickers in the closet of Yasuhiko Azumi, a 35-year-old electronics repairman accused of stealing underwear from 95 different women.

"Azumi was originally picked up on July 13 for driving without a license. When the police nabbed him, they did a search of his car and found lock-picking gear. They asked him what it was for and he told them that he used it to get inside women's apartments so he could steal their panties," a Fukuoka police beat reporter tells Shukan Jitsuwa.

It was only a quirk of fate that Azumi was picked up on the driving violation. One of the women he is accused of robbing happened to walk in on him when she returned home for lunch while he was allegedly rifling through her drawers looking for her, well, drawers. She shrieked and he fled, but the woman remembered his face. Purely by coincidence, she spotted him driving around near her apartment on July 13 and immediately notified the police who came and collared him.

"From August 2002 until May this year, Azumi committed a series of burglaries in Fukuoka and Saga prefectures. As far as we know, he broke into at least 11 women's homes," a Fukuoka Prefectural Police spokesman says. Azumi has since admitted to, and been charged for, burglarizing 95 abodes.

Azumi's targets were generally in their 20s or 30s. He'd spot them on the streets and follow them until he discovered where they lived. If he confirmed they lived alone, he'd wait until the home was empty, allegedly use his picking gear to get inside and purportedly pinch valuable items, including the inhabitant's bras and panties. Later, he is accused of selling off everything other than the underwear on online sites, netting some 3 million yen.

Azumi also apparently set up hidden cameras in many of the homes he is alleged to have robbed, beaming the footage back to his own computer and watching the women as they went about their daily lives.

"One woman found a camera he'd left on top of a bookshelf. She must have been surprised," the hack says. Azumi is accused of multiple break-ins in at least three women's places.

Azumi kept detailed records of the stolen skids, putting each set in boxes including the woman's name, a photo if he had one and her address. He's also been fairly open about his motivation.

"I love undies and I love using hidden cameras to take pictures. The women's knickers I had were my treasure. Every time I tailed a woman, I'd watch her ass really carefully. If it's an older broad, like in her 30s, her ass definitely gives off clear signs that she's in heat. A woman's ass is like her second face. I am constantly aware of women's asses, like whose is big and whose is small. The main thing to look for is whether the pantyline is showing through clearly. I looked for older women like that. And, when I imagined that their love juices were stuck to those panties...ahhh," Shukan Jitsuwa quotes the suspect as telling the police.

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