An American tourist has been arrested in Tokyo for damaging a sacred gate by carving letters onto it with his fingernails. Steve Hayes, 65, who was visiting Japan on holiday with his family, was arrested at his hotel after security camera video helped police find him. According to reports, Hayes admitted to carving his family members' initials onto a wooden pillar of Meiji Shrine's gate, saying he did it as a joke. Meiji Shrine is an important cultural landmark in Tokyo. It was first built in 1920 to honor Emperor Meiji and Empress Shoken, and was rebuilt in the 1950s after being destroyed during World War II. The shrine is famous for its large wooden torii gates, which are seen as sacred. Hayes has been charged with property damage. If found guilty, he could face up to three years in prison, or a fine of 300,000 yen (around $2,000). Police are also looking into markings carved on the pillars of another gate at the shrine. However, these carvings appear to be written using Japanese kanji characters, so they are unlikely to be linked to Hayes. There have been a number of cases involving tourists behaving badly at cultural sites around the world. In 2023, a British tourist was told he could face five years in jail after he carved a romantic message onto the walls of the Colosseum in Italy. And later that year, a Swiss teenager and a German teenager carved their initials onto the Colosseum walls in two separate cases. Also in 2023, a Polish tourist was fined for climbing the stairs of a Mayan temple at Chichen Itza in Mexico.