Japan's Imperial Palace said Thursday that it has fired an employee for stealing cash totaling nearly $25,000 from Emperor Naruhito and his family over a span of more than a year. The Imperial Household Agency IDed the suspect as an employee in their 20s who was one of about 80 attendants assigned to the palace or the agency building to serve the daily needs of Naruhito and his family. The theft is an embarrassment for the royal household, and its officials said it's unheard of in modern history, per the AP.
The case surfaced during an internal investigation by the IHA that started in January, when an assistant manager of the department noticed a discrepancy between the cash in the safe and the accounting book. When an agency official detected the loss of slightly over $200 in late March, the suspect who'd just ended an overnight shift was asked about it and admitted stealing the cash, citing financial difficulty, the agency said.
In all, the suspect admitted to stealing a total of about $24,900 on a number of occasions from November 2023 to late March of this year, and he returned the money by mid-April, the agency said. The money was part of a $2.24 million annual budget allocated as living expenses for the emperor, wife Masako, daughter Princess Aiko, and Naruhito's parents, former Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko. The IHA said it had filed a criminal complaint with palace police and formally dismissed the employee.
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Meanwhile, the assistant manager who initially noticed the cash irregularity in January was given a one-month salary cut over his lax accounting management, the IHA said. IHA chief Yasuhiko Nishimura said the theft by the employee as a public servant and staff member serving the royal family was "unthinkable" and "extremely regrettable" and apologized to the emperor and his family, NHK public television reported. He pledged to tighten discipline among palace staff, according to media reports.
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