How Japan's Most Wanted Fugitive Was Finally Exposed After 50 Years

A 70-year old man admitted at the beginning of 2024, 50 years after a warrant of arrest was placed on him, that he was one of Japan’s most wanted criminals.

The man in question was part of the terrorist group East Asia Anti-Japan Armed Front, a radical group that aimed to destroy the capitalist Japanese society.

There were various radical student groups that had emerged from college campuses that were disillusioned with what they called the ‘legal’ left. So, they turned to violence. This particular group, the East Asia Anti-Japan Armed Front, was one of the most violent. It was a really a pretty terrifying situation.

— Jeffrey Hall, lecturer in politics at Kanada University of International Studies

His mysterious disappearance for half a century prompted speculation that he had fled from the country. In reality, he was hiding in plain sight in the middle of the country.

Last month, a man named Hiroshi Uchia, or “Uchiyan,” admitted that his real name was Satoshi Kirishima—Japan’s most wanted fugitive. It was his dying wish to come clean to authorities before he passed away in Kamakura hospital from terminal stomach cancer. This way, his death certificate would have his real name written on it.

I want to draw the curtain on my life under my real name.

— Satoshi Kirishima

The East Asia Anti-Japan Armed Front was at the center of several high-profile bombings in the 1970s. One of them was the bombing of the Mitsubishi Heavy Industries headquarters in 1974 that killed eight people and injured 380 others. Kirishima was not part of this specific crime but was wanted on charges of a separate incident: setting off a timebomb in a building in Ginza, Tokyo, in April 1975.

Satoshi Kirishima passed away in the hospital shortly after his confession. Police were able to confirm with DNA tests that he was, indeed, the highly wanted criminal.

We believe that the man who died at the hospital after claiming to be Satoshi Kirishima was actually the suspect.

— Police

It is believed that he was able to evict capture for so long because of how easy it is to “vanish” in Japan. Around 100,000 people disappear each year due to debts, shame, or in this case, crime.

He [Satoshi Kirishima] stuck to the manual of the vanishing. He did things by the book, so to speak. He got paid in cash. He lived quietly under assumed name. He never talked about his past. He never contacted his family. He might have had a better life if he had gone a little farther and stolen someone’s identity but he found his niche and stuck to it.

— Investigative journalist Jake Adelstein