An unemployed 18-year-old man pretended to be a TV station worker and filmed the members at an AKB48 handshake event in Sapporo city in the Hokkaido prefecture. Currently, he is being questioned by Hokkaido police.

AKB48's agency is being cautious about the matter, stating, "There is the possibility that this was an organized crime."

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The handshake event the man intruded on �was held on May 15th, and 20 members, including Maeda Atsuko and Takahashi Minami, shook hands with 1100 fans who bought the first press limited edition of the single, "Sakura no Ki ni Narou".

According to a source, three local media outlets, including Hokkaido Broadcasting Corporation (HBC), were covering the event, and the 18-year old wore an arm band and identity card with the HBC logo on it, and brought a professional video camera borrowed from a rental company. He put an HBC sticker on the video camera and shot footage of the members among actual TV station cameramen.

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Since the interview with the press was scheduled to be the first five minutes of the event, the media staff left around 1:30 PM, but the intruder continued filming until around 5 PM. Occasionally, he even talked to the members to film "comment footages".

The members were separated into 12 lanes, and the man filmed each one carefully. When he got to the last lane, an AKB48 staff became suspicious of the unusually long filming time. When questioned, the man replied, "You have to ask my boss". The staff spoke to a man who said he was the intruder's boss on the phone, but the conversation did not make sense.

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Although initially thought to just be an overenthusiastic fan, fearing that he was part of an organized effort to sell illegal footages, the staff called the police.

Fans are strictly forbidden to take video at AKB48 events, and are banned from further events and theatre performances if caught.

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The man named member Yokoyama Yui, who was not present at the event, as his favorite member.

Source: Sponichi