Japanese Police Nab 74-year-Old 'Ninja' Thief Behind 8-Year-Long Crime Spree

Japanese police have identified a “ninja” thief, who had committed scores of break-ins and burglaries while dressed in black.

Osaka police, responsible for the arrest in July, were surprised to find that the burglar was 74-years-old. On Oct. 19, the thief was found to be the "Ninja of Heisei," a burglar who is thought to have committed more than 250 burglaries over the course of eight years, the BBC reported.

Their only lead to catch the thief, later identified as Mitsuaki Tanigawa, was the security footage showing a man wearing a black hood drawn to the eyebrows and a black neck-warmer pulled to his nose. "He was dressed all in black just like a ninja," an unnamed senior official at the Kawachi police station told AFP. However, his neck warmer slipped in May, and his identity was revealed on surveillance.

"Investigators watched him doddering out from his house like any other old man during daytime. He then went to an abandoned apartment room where he changed and waited until it got dark," the official at the station said.

Police said the thief displayed great physical ability, running effortlessly on top of walls instead of taking the streets, the Japanese publication, Asahi Shimbun said.

"When he came out in the dark, he was all in black... He did not take ordinary streets, squeezing through tight spaces between houses and running on the tops of walls," he added.

Investigators were unable to follow Tanigawa to catch him in the act but finally nabbed him when he came back to his hideout at 4 a.m. local time, after robbing an electronics store.

Police said Tanigawa would travel to the building from his home in another part of the city, before slipping into his outfit and carrying out his night-time raids in the Higashiosaka neighborhood.

While he was under arrest, Tanigawa said he "hated working and thought stealing is quicker," according to the police official.

He was charged for over 254 break-ins for thefts amounting to 30 million yen ($260,000) over the past eight years. According to reports, he also told the police that he took only 10 minutes to break into a house and stole mainly cash from people as they slept. "He's a pro. He told us 'I have confidence in my job,'" the police official said.

"If I were younger, I wouldn't have been caught. I'll quit now as I'm 74 and old enough," the thief was quoted as saying. “I am defeated.”

Heisei is the name of the current era that began in 1989 after the death of Emperor Hirohito.

A similar burglary was reported in the United States, in Staten Island, with 46-year-old Robert Costanzo raiding some 200 homes over the course of a decade while wearing a ninja costume. He was sentenced to 22 years behind bars in May.

Investigators said at the time of the hearing that Costanzo broke into many properties across New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut between 2005 and 2015 and even spied on people as he hid in their homes at times, the New York Daily News said.