Man Arrested For Hustling Stores With Soggy Bread Scam

A man in Japan was arrested this week for pulling off an extremely long-running and bizarrely successful scam that netted him over $200,000 just by complaining about soggy bread.

According to Rocket News 24, a Tokyo resident named Takashi Ishimoto allegedly started his scam by calling stores that sold bread and pretending to be a dissatisfied customer. Ishimoto would allegedly complain that he had purchased sliced bread from the store, and the bread was soggy and unsatisfying. After lodging the fraudulent complaint, Ishimoto would allegedly call the store again and pretend to be an executive from the store's corporate office. Pretending to be an authority figure, Ishimoto would allegedly chew out the store employees and tell them to make it up to the "customer" by bringing two loaves of fresh, non-soggy, sliced bread and all the cash the store had in the register at the time.

Somehow, that scam was effective. Tokyo Police estimate that Ishimoto took in 27 million yen, or about $226,000, with his soggy bread scam. Ishimoto reportedly admitted to the scam once caught by police.