9-Year Term Upheld for Ex-MUFG Bank Worker for Safe Deposit Thefts

Tokyo, March 24 (Jiji Press)–Tokyo High Court on Tuesday upheld a lower court ruling sentencing a 47-year-old former MUFG Bank employee to nine years in prison for allegedly stealing customers’ assets worth 390 million yen from safe deposit boxes. The high court dismissed the defense’s appeal against Tokyo District Court’s October 2025 ruling. The defense had sought a reduced sentence. According to the district and high court rulings, the defendant, Yukari Yamazaki, stole assets including 29 gold ingots and cash from six MUFG Bank customers’ safe deposit boxes between March 2023 and October 2024, when she worked at the major Japanese bank’s Nerima and Tamagawa branches in Tokyo. During the proceedings at the high court, the defense claimed that the district court ruling was affected by additional offenses for which the defendant had not been indicted and that this therefore constituted a violation of law. Masaki Tamura, presiding judge at the high court, rejected the claim, however, saying that the additional offenses were introduced during the district court proceedings only to examine Yamazaki’s motive and the circumstances related to the case, not to punish the defendant for the additional offenses. The judge also said the length of the prison term cannot be said to be unjust, turning down the defense’s argument that the nine-year sentence is too heavy. Yamazaki said at the district court that she had stolen money and goods worth a total of 1.7 billion to 1.8 billion yen from about 100 people. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]