It seems that there is potentially an international crime ring stretching from Tokyo to Florida involving the the theft of bras and knickers:

Tokyo police said Tuesday they had arrested a man with a passion for women’s underwear who used a fishing rod to reel them in.

Akira Hino, 51, was arrested last week for stealing a pair of knickers from a laundry pole on a second-floor balcony, a police spokesman said.

He stretched out a three-metre (10-foot) rod and caught the underwear on a hook, the Mainichi Shimbun reported.

Called to his house, police found more than 500 pairs of women’s underwear inside.

In the meantime there’s been a bra bandit on the loose in southwest Florida. The Lee County Sheriff’s Office was searching for an individual they say stole 160 bras valued at nearly $6,000 on Thursday from a Victoria Secret store, the latest in a string of bra burglaries in the area…

Since February, authorities say 452 bras valued at nearly $19,000 have been stolen from two of the chain’s southwest Florida locations. Six different bra thefts at the stores have been reported during that time.

Investigators said a female customer walked into the store Thursday and immediately went to a four-drawer cabinet with new bras of the PINK brand name. The store manager told deputies the woman waited until employees were busy helping customers and then thrust the bras into a bag and exited the store.

Conspiracy theory anyone?

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