His Alleged Method of Stealing 1.3K Credit Cards Is Incredible

While the rest of us struggle to remember what we had for lunch yesterday, Yusuke Taniguchi apparently has a much easier time with recall. Gizmodo reports that the 34-year-old part-time mall clerk in Koto City, Japan, was allegedly able to steal more than 1,300 credit cards from his customers—not by physically lifting them, but by memorizing all of the info found on each. Yes: the customer's name, credit card number, expiration date, and security code. While it's tempting to marvel at Taniguchi's "photographic memory," many experts say there's actually no such thing as a true photographic memory, in which the brain functions like a camera and retains perfectly detailed imagery. Instead, he likely has eidetic memory, which allows the person to hold onto information with impressive accuracy and detail for just a short period—usually a few minutes tops.

This theory is backed up by the fact that, after Taniguchi's arrest, police say they found a notebook with all of the stolen info scribbled in it. Per SoraNews24, Taniguchi used the stolen data to purchase goods online, which he then sold to a pawn shop so he could pay for rent and groceries. Local broadcaster All-Nippon News Network shows a clip of Taniguchi being hauled away by authorities after he was busted. How his brain ultimately failed him and led to his arrest: Police say he used his own address as the mailing address for the items he ordered online, including the two expensive handbags that finally did him in. (More strange stuff stories.)