[Alert] Mysterious Asian man who “comes onto your property without permission” is roaming around a farming village “collecting farm equipment”!

Scrap metal collectors” appearing in farming villages

In recent years, a variety of items with metal parts have been stolen. In particular, solar power generation equipment, outdoor units of air conditioners, and water meters are often targeted. With the rise in prices of metals such as iron and copper, equipment with many metal parts has become a target for thieves, causing serious damage.

In Yokohama City, there has been a series of thefts of water meters. In April of this year alone (as of April 17), 71 meters were stolen, causing a total of 190,280 yen in damage. There have also been many thefts of outdoor units, and according to the National Police Agency, there were 3,397 thefts in 2012, a 13-fold increase over the past five years.

Against this background, the Enforcement Regulations of the Secondhand Articles Dealer Law were revised on October 1, 2013. Electric wires, outdoor units of air conditioners, etc. are now subject to the obligation of identification, regardless of the transaction amount. However, theft for the purpose of metal parts is still continuing, and the next target is agricultural equipment.

Agricultural equipment can be bought at high prices. In addition, many metal parts are used. Perhaps taking notice of this, some foreigners have recently been appearing at farmhouses, telling farmers , “If you don’t want it, I’ll take it home with me.

A foreigner who claimed to be a waste collector came to Mr. A’s house, where he grows rice and vegetables in the Kanto region. He came onto our property without permission and scared us,” she recalls .

I refused, but they came again.

In early April, two foreigners of Asian descent suddenly came to my house and said, ‘We are collecting your unwanted items. When we left, they walked around the property pointing at the farm equipment, plowshares, and shovels that were already on the property and saying, ‘If you don’t want these, we’ll take them back for free.

It’s our fault for leaving the property in such a mess because it is in the countryside, but all of the tools are still in use today and are not unused. They even pointed to items in places that at first glance were not obvious, which scared me as to how they knew they were there.”

The first time, we refused and asked them to leave, saying that we couldn’t give them everything because we needed it all, but the following week, the same duo came again, asking us if we had any unwanted items. The next week, however, the same two people asked again, ” Do you have any unwanted items ?

The next week, the same two people asked again, “Do you have any unwanted items? Did you find anything you don’t want? They kept coming back and smiling as they wandered around the property pointing at the farm equipment. I wondered if they were the thieves I had seen in the newspapers and on the news recently, though I had nothing worth money in this rural area. I told them, ‘I have no intention of giving it to you, so please leave.’ I closed the front door and they finally left after about five minutes.”(Mr. A)

When Mr. A told this story to a farmer he knew who lived nearby, he said, “They came to our house, too. It was annoying to have them walk around pointing at the farm equipment on our property in the same way,” he said. Considering the possibility that they might be unscrupulous people who forcefully collect unwanted goods, or that they were casing the premises for a theft ring, Mr. A contacted the police and told them that he wanted them to patrol the area, and after that the foreigners stopped coming.

Such forced purchases of farm machinery are often seen on the Internet.

A foreigner came to me and said he would take back unwanted farm equipment, but I didn’t buy it, so I didn’t go through with it. How did you know where they were even though they were covered with blue sheets? Like the batteries that used to be stolen so often in the past, there is now a possibility that they will be stolen.

[Joon] I live in a rural area in the Chugoku region, and a few years ago, Asian metal buyers started coming even deep into the mountains. Around the same time, there have been a number of incidents of metal farm equipment and brush cutters being stolen from neighboring farmhouses.

In rural areas, the number of scavengers is also on the rise, and moreover, the number of thefts targeting farm machinery is also on the rise. According to the Ibaraki Prefectural Police’s report on auto thefts in 2013, tractors ranked fifth among the most frequently damaged vehicle types, behind popular models such as Prius and Land Cruisers. They accounted for 4.8% of all stolen vehicles. Even agricultural equipment can be a target for thieves.

The rising price of metals has made the used equipment market a target for a wide variety of items. Some agricultural equipment scavengers are suspected of operating illegally without an antique dealer’s license. A license as a general waste collector and transporter is likely required to pick up unwanted items free of charge. There is also a possibility that thieves are casing the area, so if a suspicious vendor comes to your door, it would be wise not to respond, but to contact the police or other authorities.

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