Luxury Swiss watch worth nearly $300,000 stolen in Tokyo returned with apology note

A luxury Swiss watch worth about $290,000, stolen last week from a shop in Japan's capital Tokyo, has been returned with a note asking for forgiveness. News agency AFP reported the information on Tuesday.

A man posing as a customer pretended to try on the Audemars Piguet watch and then fled the shop with it still on his wrist.

On Monday, the Asahi Shimbun newspaper and other media, citing unnamed investigation sources, reported that a packet had arrived at the shop. Inside it were the watch and a handwritten note apologising.

The watch was identified as the stolen one from its serial number.

When AFP contacted the shop, its authorities declined to comment on the matter.

According to the Asahi report, Tokyo police are still searching for the man on suspicion of theft.

Earlier, in August, four luxury watches worth 200 million yen ($1.3 million) were stolen from another shop in the same shopping complex.