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Kobe man arrested after threatening driving school with 1,500 origami cranes

May 18, 2023 (soranews24.com) - On 11 May Hyogo Prefectural Police in Kobe City arrested a 22-year-old man for sending 15 threatening letters and one case containing roughly 1,500 origami cranes to his former driving school.

The incidents occurred between 27 October of last year and 9 April this year, in which envelopes with a 39-year-old employee’s name on it were placed in the school’s mailbox. The letters reportedly had messages such as “Die!” and “Quit your job now!” written on them. The paper cranes, however, were simply paper cranes.

Police used surveillance video to track the suspect down and found that he was a former student of the driving school who had failed to get his truck driver’s license last year. After his arrest, the man admitted to the crime and said that he had gotten “angry at their poor teaching style.” When asked the million-dollar question of what was up with the cranes, he told police that folding them helped to calm him down.

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