Police on Tuesday said they are looking for a man whom they believe was responsible for four muggings which took place on the streets of Yokosuka and Yokohama on Monday morning.

The first of the incidents occurred just after midnight on a street in Yokosuka, when an 18-year-old woman was robbed of her wallet and cell phone, TV Asahi reported. The next incident occurred at around 1 a.m. when a man stole a 74-year-old woman's purse on a street in Yokohama's Kanazawa Ward.

Police say that four similar attacks were reported in the space of two and a half hours within 4 kilometers of one another. Each of the victims described their attacker as around 20 years of age, 160cm tall and wearing a gray hoodie.

Police say they are treating the muggings as the work of a single individual who is targeting lone women walking home late at night.

© Japan Today