Travelers to Japan often return home with stories about the various measures of kindness and hospitality they encountered in surprising ways, but there might be no more surprising incident involving courtesy than one involving a would-be convenience store robber in Fukuoka prefecture that took place this past week.

At around 1:40 PM on October 5th, a man entered a convenience store in Ogori City and politely asked the store manager for permission to rob the store. The suspect approached the manager and inquired, "I've come with the intent to intimidate you and rob this store, may I ask you to please cooperate with me?", reports Yahoo, and was quickly rebuffed with a flat "I can't do that." The polite and potential culprit simply left the store after the puzzling exchange.

Roughly five minutes later, a man matching the description of the suspect in the convenience store entered a police station in Oguri City and admitted to involvement in the crime. After investigation, he was found to have been carrying a knife in a bag and arrested for "attempted robbery". Police are currently investigating the "crime" in detail, but it might be safe to conclude that this well-mannered and quickly defeated stick-up man was looking for a way to be arrested the entire time.