Hong Kong (CNN) A bonsai thief has stolen seven tiny trees worth at least 13 million yen ($118,000) from a garden space in Saitama prefecture near Tokyo.
The loot included a rare 400-year-old shimpaku tree, a star of the bonsai world, which was due to be entered in a Japanese beauty competition this month.
The prize shimpaku alone was worth over 10 million yen ($90,000), according to Fuyumi Iimura, wife of the bonsai master who crafted the trees.
"We treated these miniature trees like our children," she said. "There are no words to describe how we feel. It's like having your limbs lopped off."
Iimura added that those responsible for the thefts, committed over a series of nights last month, were likely professionals, as they had identified the "most valuable trees" from the couple's roughly 5,000 hectare park, which has around 3,000 bonsai trees.
jofuspocket on March 14th, 2021 at 17:44 UTC »
A bonsai expert named Ryan Neil's ex-wife broke into his home/bonsai nursery and destroyed a 600-year-old bonsai that was worth $250,000, among several other priceless bonsais, as well as his home and furniture. To think that tree had been alive for six centuries and a bitter/unstable divorcee was the ultimate cause of its demise...the world makes no sense sometimes
sangunpark1 on March 14th, 2021 at 16:16 UTC »
man bonsai is crazy to me, as a kid i thought they were a special species of tree that just stays that small, but thats a regular fucking tree they just maintain in this fashion, the amount of work and time (coupled with errors that just ruin or kill your tree) is mindblowing
barath_s on March 14th, 2021 at 14:58 UTC »
There was another case where two bonsai trees were stolen. This time from the US. The museum asked the thieves to take daily care so that they didn't die
And the thieves gave the bonsai trees right back.
Ref