Intrestingly, I was in a little bar in Ōimachi, Tokyo just the other day. (First time in ...years? Because of COVID-19.) A slightly drunk local guy stormed in with a printed security camera picture of a guy that had committed several dine & dash incidents (and a theft of some decorative jewelry) in the neighboring bars during the last weeks, the bar we were in being one of the victims. He came to hear the story of the owner of the bar and to confirm the guy in the picture was the same, and then left to spread the word to other places.

I have lived almost 7 years in Japan, and this was the first time I heard of such an incident happening somewhere around me, but "食い逃げ" ("kuinige", dine & dash) is a word you tend to encounter here and there.