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.

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Japanese police have arrested a 65-year-old American tourist for allegedly defacing a Tokyo shrine. The man, identified as Steve Hayes, is accused of using his fingernails to scratch five letters into a torii gate at the Meiji Jingu shrine on Tuesday morning.

Suspect Steve Lee Hayes, 65, allegedly carved letters into the wooden pillar of one of the shrine's torii gates.

An American tourist was arrested for vandalism at a historic shrine in Tokyo a day after arriving in the country on vacation with his family.

The arrest of an American tourist for defacing a revered Tokyo shrine has highlighted a growing challenge for Japan, a country renowned for its politeness and reverence for tradition, now grappling with a surge in foreign tourists who sometimes disregard local customs and laws.

Tokyo police arrested an American tourist accused of defacing one of the city’s holiest shrines. Steve Lee Hayes, 65 was detained and has confessed to carving his family name into the wooden pillar of a torii gate at the Meiji Shrine, police said. He allegedly used his fingernails to carve it.

A 65-year-old American is suspected of carving alphabetical characters into the pillar of a torii gate of the Meiji Jingu Shrine.

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.