The History Lesson
This week back in 1968, the biggest heist in Japanese history went down. Picture this: You’re an employee at one of Japan’s largest banks. And you and some co-workers are given a simple task: deliver $300 million yen to one of the bank’s clients.
You’re driving over with the money in a company car when a motorcycle cop pulls you over. The cop tells you that your boss — the bank manager — just had his house blown up. And that whoever did it may have planted dynamite inside the car you’re sitting in.
You’d get outta the car, right? And when smoke started billowing from it, you’d run, right? Well, that’s what happened on December 10th 1968. Except the cop was actually a robber in disguise. He had created the smoke with a flare. And then he hopped in the car — and drove off with 300 million yen.
What followed was the largest manhunt in Japanese history. 170 thousand cops amassed a list of over 100 thousand suspects. Even the country’s most famous detective got involved. He’d solved an infamous kidnapping the year before. Could he solve the heist of the century? Nope. No one was ever convicted of the robbery. And even though the statute of limitations passed in 1975 — the perpetrator has never confessed.
The Booze
Fuzzy Screw Bomb
RECIPE, as created for the DPD by Mike Jin of the Far Bar in LA’s Little Tokyo:
Ingredients:
In a pint glass add:
– Asahi or another Japanese beer (or substitute orange juice)
Fill glass 1.5 inches from rim and set aside.
Meanwhile, in a separate shaker add:
– 3/4 oz Soju
– 3/4 oz Peach Schnapps
– ice
Instructions:
Shake to chill, strain into a shot glass.
Lay a pair of chop sticks across the top of the beer glass. Separate the sticks enough to support the shot glass on its edges.
Pound on the table until the chop sticks separate and the shot glass drops into the beer.
Drink quickly and try to forget The Fuzz just screwed you over.
