– Man Arrested for Prank Calls to TEPCO (JIJI PRESS, Sept. 26, 2011):
Tokyo, Sept. 26 (Jiji Press)–A 41-year-old man has been arrested for making some 1,800 prank calls between early July and late last month to a call center operated by nuclear crisis-hit Tokyo Electric Power Co. <9501>, police sources said Monday.
The man, a company employee living in Tokyo, is suspected of obstructing TEPCO’s business activities by making silent calls or calls to slander the utility between July 4 and Aug. 23, the sources said.
His daily number of calls to the center, designed for inquiries about damages related to the nuclear disaster at the utility’s Fukushima No. 1 power plant, reached as many as some 270.
The man admitted the charges against him, saying that he was angry about having to eat radiation-contaminated food, according to the sources.
As the man has a record of mental illness, Tokyo’s Metropolitan Police Department plans to look into whether he is mentally competent to be held responsible for his actions.