Japan ‘grandpa’ crime gang with combined age of 227 given code name ‘G3S’ by police

An elderly three-man gang in Japan – with a combined age of 227 – has gone viral after detectives investigating their alleged underworld exploits gave them the code name “G3S” which is homophonic to “grandpas” in Japanese.

Hideo Umino, 88, Hidemi Matsuda, 70, and Kenichi Watanabe, 69, met in prison, and have been accused of plotting to commit burglaries after they were released.

The trio allegedly broke into an empty house in Sapporo, the capital city of the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido, in May.

They are accused of stealing 200 yen (US$1.3) and three bottles of whisky worth a total of 10,000 yen (US$65).

In June, they allegedly robbed another empty house in the same district, taking 24 pieces of jewellery worth one million yen (US$6,400).

Investigators say that the eldest gang member, Umino, was in charge of the stealing, Matsuda was the getaway driver and the youngest, Watanabe, was responsible for dealing with the stolen property.