Osaka police hide 81,000 crimes to clean up city's image
TOKYO (AFP) - Osaka police have admitted they did not report more than 81,000 offences over a period of several years in a desperate bid to clean up the region's woeful reputation for street crime.
The revelation came earlier this week when embarrassed authorities said they had kept the data out of national crime statistics between 2008 and 2012.
The deception, which amounted to nearly 10 percent of all crimes in the area during that period, meant that Tokyo appeared to have the worst national crime figures.
The vast majority of covered-up crimes were for theft - including tens of thousands of stolen vehicle and bicycle cases - but hundreds of more serious offences such as muggings and even murder may have been omitted from official crime data, the Asahi newspaper reported
TOKYO (AFP) - Osaka police have admitted they did not report more than 81,000 offences over a period of several years in a desperate bid to clean up the region's woeful reputation for street crime.
The revelation came earlier this week when embarrassed authorities said they had kept the data out of national crime statistics between 2008 and 2012.
The deception, which amounted to nearly 10 percent of all crimes in the area during that period, meant that Tokyo appeared to have the worst national crime figures.
The vast majority of covered-up crimes were for theft - including tens of thousands of stolen vehicle and bicycle cases - but hundreds of more serious offences such as muggings and even murder may have been omitted from official crime data, the Asahi newspaper reported
