Six years after his disappearance, his relatives “continue to fight” for answers

On July 29, 2018, Frenchwoman Tiphaine Véron disappeared from the Japanese city of Nikko, north of Tokyo. Since then, her relatives have been trying to restart the investigation, which has stalled due to the lack of cooperation from the local police.

Tiphaine Véron’s family has been waiting for answers for six years, relentlessly. Six years since the young woman, aged 36 at the time, disappeared from the small Japanese town of Nikko on July 29, 2018. She has never been seen again.

Faced with the lack of cooperation from the Japanese police, convinced that it was an accident, Tiphaine’s family has made numerous trips to Japan to conduct their own investigations. Her brother, Damien, the figurehead of this fight, spoke to BFMTV this Sunday, September 1, about this “exhausting” last year.

“We saw that we had to continue to mobilize (…) We are not giving up, we will continue to fight,” assures the brother of the missing woman. For the Véron family, the coming year represents the fight of the last chance.

“We tried everything”

The case was relaunched in France in early 2023 after the case was entrusted to the Nanterre cold cases unit, and an international letter of request is underway, but the family and their lawyers emphasize the difficulty of exchanges between Japan and the French justice system. The UN has thus ordered Japan to cooperate with the French authorities.

“The Japanese are not cooperating and their judicial system does not allow for investigations,” sighs Damien.

“We’ve tried everything, the UN… We’re trying to conduct investigations on site, but it’s still complicated,” explains the man who left his job six months ago to devote himself fully to this last hope.

To do this, the family plans to launch a crowdfunding campaign to finance private investigators. At the end of July, the young woman’s relatives also launched an appeal for witnesses, asking tourists present in Nikko on the day of Tiphaine’s disappearance to send their photos that could help identify a possible suspect. “As long as there are suspects, we will continue to fight,” assures Damien.