KYOTO -- A 35-year-old farmer was arrested on Oct. 14 for allegedly stealing about 150 kilograms of Kyoto's renowned Kujo-negi green onions, worth some 105,000 yen (approx. $700) at current market value, from a field in Kyoto Prefecture.

Kyoto Prefectural Police's Yawata Police Station arrested Gen Kikuchi from the city of Kyoto's Fushimi Ward on suspicion of theft.

Kikuchi stands accused of stealing Kujo-negi, a certified Kyoto brand product, using a sharp object to cut them out from a field in the prefectural city of Yawata owned by a 55-year-old company executive from the city between around 3 p.m. on Sept. 19 and 7:30 a.m. the following day.

According to the police station, officers investigated based on security camera footage in the area and identified the suspect as Kikuchi, who also grows the green onions himself. He has reportedly denied the allegations, saying that he has no recollection of having done anything wrong.

In Kyoto Prefecture, there has been a string of Kujo-negi onion thefts since June in Yawata, its neighboring city of Uji and the town of Kumiyama, with damage totaling approximately 2 million yen (roughly $13,000). In September, another farmer was arrested for allegedly stealing about 216 kilograms of the onions in Kumiyama. The prefectural police will continue to investigate the connection between the two cases in Yawata and Kumiyama, as well as other Kujo-negi onion theft cases.

(Japanese original by Kenji Yagura, Kyoto Bureau)