TOKYO - Nitori is a major home furnishings chain in Japan with hundreds of stores across the country. They even expanded to North America for about a decade under the brand Aki-Home, with both names deriving from the founder Akio Nitori.
However, as a company gets as large as Nitori, it can be difficult to keep tabs on the entire workforce. When that happens all sorts of problems, from frequent customer complaints to harassment, can begin to emerge, but even a company like Nitori was probably caught off guard to learn that one of their security personnel was stealing from the store he worked at.
On January 25, Saitama Police arrested 47-year-old Hiroyuki Hashimoto for stealing from a Nitori store in Kumagaya City, Saitama Prefecture, where he was employed part-time as a security guard.
According to police, Hashimoto confessed to stealing eight items from the store on the night of January 11 after it closed. The items included a pot lid and mattress and had a total value of 38,000 yen. He also admitted to stealing from the store since March of last year. ...continue reading
