TOKYO MAN ALLEGEDLY STOLE $292K WATCH, THEN IT CAME BACK

A man allegedly tried on a $292,000 Audemars Piguet watch at a Tokyo shop on October 29, 2026, then ran out the door with it. Three days later, a courier delivered the watch back to the store with a handwritten apology note.

The shop is on the third floor of the Nakano Broadway complex in Tokyo’s Nakano Ward, according to The Japan Times. The watch was a Royal Oak valued at about ¥46 million.

The man posed as a customer and asked to try the watch on, the Japan Times reported. The theft happened at about 8 p.m., and The Star reported he spent about eight minutes in the shop first. Two employees were there. Neither was hurt.

Then, on the morning of Sunday, November 1, the courier showed up. Staff checked the serial number and confirmed it was the missing watch.

Tucked in with it was a handwritten note of apology. The full text has not been made public, but the Mainichi Shimbun, as reported by VnExpress International, said it read “I’m sorry.”

The package was sent from Aichi Prefecture and carried a name and address. Police believe that information is false, the Japan Times reported.

Police are still searching for the man who fled with the watch, and they are looking into who sent the package. Asahi Business Daily reported that investigators are also trying to determine whether the sender is the same person who took it.

This was not the complex’s first brush with high-end watch crime. In August 2026, four other luxury watches worth a reported ¥200 million in total were stolen from a Nakano Broadway shop, The Star reported. Two Chilean men were arrested later that month.

Those watches did not come back in the mail.