A Montenegrin member of the "Pink Panther" gang of international thieves has been sent home for trial over the $3.6 million robbery of a Tokyo jewellery shop, according to Japanese police.
In the June 2007 heist in the upmarket Ginza district, Radovan Jelusic and another Montenegrin man sprayed tear gas at three saleswomen in the store and stole a tiara, necklaces and other jewels worth 284 million yen.
Jelusic, 41, wanted by Interpol over the crime, was arrested in Italy in 2010 in connection with a separate robbery and was transferred to Montenegro on Friday, a Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) spokesman said.
"The suspect is scheduled to face trial in Montenegro as Japan has asked the Montenegrin authorities to punish him on its behalf," the official told AFP, confirming press reports.
Jelusic has been charged by the MPD with robbery causing injury.
His accomplice, Rifat Hadziahmetovic, was arrested in Cyprus in 2009 in connection with another heist in Spain, to where he was transferred.
He was then extradited to Japan in 2010 to be tried for the Tokyo robbery and was sentenced to 10 years in prison last September. He is appealing the ruling.
The two Montenegrins have been described by the MPD as members of the Pink Panthers, a once seemingly untouchable band of thieves drawn from paramilitary circles in the former Yugoslavia.
The gang was given its name after British detectives found a diamond ring hidden in a jar of face cream, echoing an incident in Peter Sellers' 1963 comedy "The Pink Panther".
The smash-and-grab crime group is known to have stolen jewellery worth hundreds of millions of dollars in nearly 30 countries over the past decade, including 3.5 billion yen worth of gems from another Ginza shop in 2004.
Source: AFP Asian Edition
