Investigative sources in Japanese police said on Wednesday that gold bars worth 600 million yen ($5 million) were stolen in broad daylight by men disguised as police officers in the city of Fukuoka in southwestern Japan sometime around this summer, Kyodo news agency reported.
According to the report, several men were approached by the fake police officers near a railway station in the center of the city as they were taking the ingots to a cash-for-gold store.
The gold bars weighing more than 100 kilograms (220 pounds) were in attaché cases, and the men disguised as police officers pretended to inspect them as part of an investigation into a smuggling case before escaping with the valuables by car.
The victims told police that they were making money by reselling precious metals. They also said they had purchased the gold bars “the day before” the incident, according to the report.
