Cops look into Israeli hawkers - JP

[dArKeR]

In almost any of Tokyo's larger entertainment zones, one comes across young Israelis and people of other nationalities hawking trinkets that range from handicrafts to imitations of famous brand watches. This, of course, has been going on for well over a decade. On May 1, the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department completed its latest investigation into the trade.

According to an article in the Sankei Shimbun (May 2), about 80% of the hawkers are Israeli. Police determined that many are in Japan on short-term tourist visas. When picked up for illegal street peddling and questioned by the authorities, they invariably maintain that they were introduced to the jobs "by friends." But the sales tables, illumination and power generators — which are dropped off at the sales site each evening by supply trucks — not to mention the value of the goods themselves, led the cops to the brilliant conclusion that "tourists could not come up such a large amount of goods on their own," and that they must therefore be supplied by a large organization.

http://www.japantoday.com/e/?content=kuchikomi&id=300

Whatever happened to the Israeli art students casing out American law enforcement?