Osaka Police Fight Crime The Old Fashion Way: They Cover It Up

Osaka is known as Japan's capital of crime.  With that in mind and wanting to clean-up the cities image the Osaka Prefectural police decided the best method for doing this was to  "See No Evil."   Look how well it worked out Tokyo was elevated to Japan's number one crime city while Osaka looked as fresh as a spring garden.

The revelation came when embarrassed authorities said they had kept the data out of national crime statistics between 2008 and 2012.
The deception, which amounted to nearly 10% of all crimes in the area during that period, meant that Tokyo appeared to have the worst national crime figures.
The vast majority of covered-up crimes were for theft—including tens of thousands of stolen vehicle and bicycle cases—but hundreds of more serious offences such as muggings and even murder may have been omitted from official crime data, the Asahi newspaper reported.

With Japan's "high crime" rate the police spend most of their working hours searching for stolen bicycles or failing that accuse you of stealing your own bicycle.  Makes for great police work.

 The force’s top brass denied that they had ordered underlings to hide the data, and nearly 100 officers were reprimanded over the deception, they said.But lower-ranking officers have told major media that authorities were under heavy pressure from a popular regional politician to change the city’s image as a hotbed of criminality.

Who could that popular regional politician be?  Toru Hashimoto maybe?  Osaka's racist, history denying, imperial Japan loving mayor.