The was a bank robbery committed by members of the

Japanese Communist Party The is a communist party in Japan. Founded in 1922, it is the oldest political party in the country. It has 250,000 members as of January 2024, making it one of the largest non-governing communist parties in the world. The party is chaired ...

in Ōmori-ku,

Tokyo Tokyo, officially the Tokyo Metropolis, is the capital of Japan, capital and List of cities in Japan, most populous city in Japan. With a population of over 14 million in the city proper in 2023, it is List of largest cities, one of the most ...

, Japan, in 1932. The bank robbery was dubbed the Omori Gang affair.

Background

On 6 October 1932, three party members stole 31,700 yen from the Kawasaki Daihyaku Bank Ōmori Branch in an attempt to obtain funds for party operations. The plan was unknown to all but one member of the central committee. The robbery badly discredited the party in the eyes of the public. The government took full advantage of the incident and subsequent trial to portray the party as a nest of gangsters, leading to the destruction of the Party.

Perpetrators

Yusho Otsuka, who was the brother-in-law of

Hajime Kawakami was a Japanese Marxist economist of the Taishō and early Shōwa periods. Biography Born in Yamaguchi, he graduated from Tokyo Imperial University. After writing for ''Yomiuri Shimbun'', he attained a professorship in economics at Kyoto Imp ...

, hatched a plan to procure desperately needed funds for the party. He and an accomplice held up the main branch of the Kawasaki Daihyaku Bank in Ōmori. He used Kawakami's younger daughter, Yoshiko, to "drive alongside him in the getaway car to lend an air of respectability to their group escape." Yoshiko and Otsuka were able to outwit the police. Biographer Yasutaka Saegusa believes that the writer

Osamu Dazai , known by his pen name , was a Japanese novelist and author. A number of his most popular works, such as ''The Setting Sun'' (斜陽, ''Shayō'') and '' No Longer Human'' (人間失格, ''Ningen Shikkaku''), are considered modern classics. Hi ...

was indirectly involved in the Omori Gang bank robbery. Others who were accused of being connected to the robbery included those arrested in the

Atami is a city located in Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 36,865 in 21,593 households

raid of 1933.

Arrests

The robbery put a high price on Otsuka's head. Otsuka decided to discontinue his visits to Kawakami. In October 1932 police arrested party members involved in the armed robbery.

References

Bank robberies Japanese Communist Party 1932 in Japan 1932 crimes in Japan Robberies in Japan Terrorist incidents in the 1930s {{Japan-crime-stub