An American visiting Japan with his family has been arrested on suspicion of vandalism after allegedly desecrating Tokyo’s Meiji Jingu Shrine. According to Reuters, the 65-year-old (identified as Steve Lee Hayes) clawed five letters representing family names into a pillar of the Torii gates with his fingernails.

Steve Lee Hayes carved letters onto a pillar of a gate of a shrine in Shibuya and was arrested on suspicion of property damage, Tokyo police said.

Steve Lee Hayes was arrested Wednesday on suspicion of property damage, a Tokyo Metropolitan Police spokesperson told TheJapan Times. Hayes is accused of “carving the alphabet with his fingernails” into the wooden pillar of Meiji shrine gate in Tokyo’s Shibuya Ward around 11am on Tuesday, police told the outlet.

A 65-year-old American tourist has been arrested in Japan for allegedly carving letters into a torii gate at a Tokyo shrine.

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Hungarian police say the suspect had met the 31-year-old Oregon woman at a nightclub and later made internet searches on how to dispose of a body.

American tourist Steve Hayes was arrested on Wednesday ‘on suspicion of damaging property’ at the Meiji Jingu shrine

Tokyo authorities arrested a 65-year-old U.S. tourist for allegedly defacing the grate of a local shrine on Tuesday.

A 65-year-old American tourist has been arrested in Japan for carving letters into a wooden gate at a shrine in Tokyo.

An American tourist has been arrested in Japan for allegedly carving letters into a pillar of a gate to a shrine in Tokyo.