Arrested Man Allegedly Threatened To Set Sega HQ On Fire
A man in Japan has been arrested for allegedly sending threatening emails to Sega’s corporate contact. The emails included threats against employees, their family, and even their children, alongside threats of arson.
Sourcing Yomiuri, Kotaku reports Akira Watanabe, age 54, was arrested on March 16 for allegedly sending death threats via email between December 2021 and February of this year. The content of those emails included threats to “kill employees,” including “the family and children of employees,” as well as an arson threat to “set the company on fire.”
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Emails were reportedly sent from Watanabe’s phone to Sega’s corporate email contact. Watanabe confessed after being arrested, explaining to police that he “lost in an online game and was frustrated.” The name of the game was not disclosed.
The fire threat is a reminder of the deadly Kyoto Animation tragedy that killed 36 people in 2019. That fire shocked Japan and the world and brought a new era of zero-tolerance to threatening communications in the island nation. Similar threats against Square Enix in 2019 and Konami in 2020 were met with quick arrests.
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Freelance writer and contributor at The Gamer, Sean hails from Toronto, Canada. If you ask Sean what he likes, he'll say, "Robots, Ninjas, donuts - in that order."
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