[VIDEOS] Three arrested for unhygienic pranks at sushi restaurants in Japan

MISE À DAY

Three people aged 15 to 21 have been arrested in Japan for carrying out unhygienic pranks at a sushi restaurant, a video of which went viral online recently shocking the entire country.  

The police accuse the trio of having thus sought to prevent the commercial activity of the restaurant chain Kura Sushi, which had been assailed by complaints from customers after the broadcast of the video and had to urgently carry out intense cleaning.

In these images, we can see a member of the trio, looking laughing, brutally grabbing a sushi on a revolving counter before shoving it in his mouth, then drinking soy sauce from the neck of a common bottle.

Lmao theres trending topic in Japan of "sushi terrorism"started when a kid licked sushi & cups in conveyor belt in Sushiro Restaurant.Which led to posts of other bad behaviors in sushi outlets like stealing food & putting wasabi in conveyors. Guess Japan's not so clean after all pic.twitter.com/mbzXCv8e22

— Rihito says 我的推特账户已被归还 (@RihitoPhysicist) February 1, 2023

Similar videos at other restaurants had surfaced on Twitter and TikTok, with some appearing to have been shot weeks or even years ago.

These incidents, while seemingly isolated, had caused a scandal in Japan, known for its strict standards of hygiene and cleanliness, and had quickly been nicknamed on social networks “sushi-terro”, an abbreviation of “sushi terrorism”.

A 21-year-old man and a 15-year-old girl were arrested in central Aichi prefecture on Wednesday, a local police spokesman told AFP on Thursday. p>A first member of the trio, aged 19, was arrested last month.

These arrests would be the first in the context of the “sushi-terro” affair.

“Forced obstruction of doing business” can result in heavy fines in Japan, even up to three years in prison.

“We sincerely hope that these arrests will make society aware that these pranks, which fundamentally undermine our system based on a relationship of trust with customers, constitute a crime, and that they will not be imitated in the future”, reacted the Kura chain. Sushi in a press release.

A similar Japanese restaurant chain, Sushiro, had also been the victim of similar filmed pranks, which had br quickly caused the stock market share of his group to fall.