A waste collection worker and his 14-year-old junior high schoolgirl daughter have been arrested for the theft of 20 iron manhole covers.
Kazuhisa Shibuya, the 43-year-old waste collection worker explained why they were stealing those manhole covers:
“We needed money to get by and I was going to sell the manhole covers to another company. I’m really sorry I got my daughter involved”.
The combine value of the 20 manhole covers came to about 60,000 yen, were stolen from a condominium in Tokyo’s Setagaya-ku on the night of March 19. Shibuya removed the covers and carried them to his small truck, where his daughter stacked them into piles. A security guard noticed what the father and daughter were doing and alerted the police.
Source: Mainichi JP
I think its really irresponsible and dangerous to be stealing manhole covers. What if cyclists or pedestrians fell into the uncovered manholes?
That’s a pretty manhole cover though
Stealing Manholes is very common here where I live, in Panama. Many pedestrians and cars gets into trouble with the situation, worst thing is that people can actually die, especially young children…It got worst since many countries like China and others are buying the metals and people want a quick buck. Never thought that even in Japan, it happens. Shame that this guy drag her daughter into this.
On another note, that manhole cover design is awesome. I think the only solution is change the materials of the manhole covers for another, like hard plastics.
Manhole is an art in Japan?
In Soviet Russia manhole cover steal you!
Lol they steal anything they can nowadays. Signposts, signboards (metal ones), metal poles supposed to stop bicycle in pavements, and etc. Heard about this a few months back at the latest in Singapore itself.
Ditto here. In fact, the manhole cover in front of my house was stolen recently (-__-’)