TOKYO: A pure gold tea bowl that was stolen last week while being showcased in an event at a department store in Tokyo has been found at an antique shop in the Japanese capital, police said.

There is no noticeable damage to the 24-karat golden bowl, which is for use for matcha green tea and was priced at 10,406,000 yen at the exhibition event, the third investigation division of the Criminal Investigation Bureau at Tokyo’s Metropolitan Police Department said Monday.

MPD investigators on Monday morning confiscated the tea bowl from the shop in Tokyo’s Taito Ward, to which it had been resold. The president of the company that organized the exhibition identified it. The creator’s engraving on the seized item and its weight matched those of the tea bowl stolen from the event venue, according to investigators.

In the high-profile incident, a 32-year-old man, a resident of Tokyo’s Koto Ward, was arrested by the MPD on Saturday for alleged theft.

According to the third investigation division, the man, Masaru Horie, stole the pure gold tea bowl during the exhibition at major Japanese department store operator Takashimaya Co.’s Nihonbashi outlet in Tokyo’s Chuo Ward around 11:40 a.m. Thursday.

He sold the tea bowl, weighing about 380 grams, to a shop in Koto Ward for about 1.8 million yen around 1:30 p.m. the same day, showing his My Number identification card. The tea bowl was resold to the antique shop in Taito Ward within Thursday, according to the police.

On display at the exhibition, held on the eighth floor of the Takashimaya store, were more than 1,000 pure gold items, also including a screen with a reference price of over 100 million yen and a 2.1-meter-tall dragon using about 3,000 sheets of gold leaf and having a reference price of 38 million yen.

Horie has admitted to the theft allegations, telling investigators, “I saw the tea bowl, and I took it because I thought I may be able to do it.”

Horie said he learned that the exhibition was being held at the department store while he was strolling around the Nihonbashi district on the day he committed the theft.

The tea bowl in question was created by gold craftsman Koichi Ishikawa.

During the exhibition, the pure gold tea bowl was on display in an acrylic case with no lock or alarm system.

Jiji Press