The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Volume 10 | Issue 7 | Number 1 | Feb 11, 2012

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Recent Trends in Organized Crime in Japan: Yakuza vs thePolice, & Foreign Crime Gangs ~ Part 2 ２１世紀のやくざ ―― 日本における組織犯罪の最近動向

Andrew Rankin

Recent Trends in Organized Crimein Japan: Yakuza vs the Police, &Foreign Crime Gangs ~ Part 2 ２１世紀のやくざ ―― 日本における組織犯罪の最近動向

Andrew Rankin

II The State, the Police and the Yakuza:Control or Symbiosis?

The Yakuza and the NPA

The popular status of outlaws logically relatesto the integrity of the legal system outsidewhich they operate. Putting it simply, forvillains to look bad, the police need to lookgood. Tamura Eitarō has shown how thechivalrous image enjoyed by nineteenth-century yakuza stemmed in part from publicdisgust for corruption and violence by thepolice squads who hunted them.1 A similarproblem confronts the NPA today. Since theearly 2000s police corruption has been thesubject of increasingly numerous academicarticles and media reports. Ichikawa Hiro, alawyer who gave test imony on pol icecorruption in the Diet, says, ‘There is aninstitutionalized culture of illicit money-makingin the NPA, and since it has gone on for so longit is now very deep-rooted’ (Akahata 2004:116).In 2009 a veteran police officer named SenbaToshirō, while still serving on the force,publ ished a lengthy exposé of pol icecorruption: financial scams, fabricated

evidence, forced confessions, beatings ofsuspects, drug abuse by police officers,embezzlement from police slush funds, andmuch else. Senba’s sensational conclusion: ‘Thelargest organized crime gang in Japan today isthe National Police Agency’ (Senba 2009:73).

As a case study of the sort of situation thatSenba describes we might consider the recenthistory of the pachinko industry. The yakuzafirst infiltrated peripheral areas of the pachinkoindustry during the 1970s. Supplies of gifts topachinko hall stores, for example, providedeffective camouflage for extorting securitypayments. In the 1980s the police announcedtheir intention to eliminate these yakuzarackets. They accomplished this with greatsuccess. Today pachinko business owners neednot placate the yakuza. Instead they mustplacate the Security Electronics andCommunications Technology Association(SECTA; referred to in Japanese as theHōtsūkyō). A governmental body founded in1985, SECTA is the sole regulator of the entirepachinko industry, issuing permits for pachinkohalls, conducting safety inspections of pachinkomachine factories, and so on. Given the vastsums of money at stake – annual pachinkoearnings are estimated at ¥30 trillion – SECTAis an immensely powerful organization.

Though it is unclear what types of skills arerequired to work at SECTA, being a recentlyretired police officer seems to be a plus. Yamamoto Shizuhiko, chairman of SECTA until2005, was formerly the Director-General of theNPA, and his successor, Yoshino Jun, is afo rmer Commiss ioner o f the Tokyo

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Metropolitan Police. A former bureau chief atthe NPA’s Communications Division and aformer chief of the Fukuoka Police Departmentsit on the Board of Directors.2 Investigativejournalists estimate that one third of SECTA’semployees are ex-policemen.3 Ex-policemenwho cannot find a post to their liking at SECTAmay choose from a number of relatedorganizations, such as the associations ofwholesalers who supply gifts to the pachinkohalls, or any of the companies that providecard-reading machines for pachinko halls; all ofthese have security departments andmonitoring teams that are heavily populated byex-policemen. Many pachinko machinemanufacturers and pachinko owners’associations retain ex-policemen as consultantssimply to ensure smooth relations with SECTA.In short, all that appears to have happened isthat the police have closed down the yakuzarackets and set up their own rackets, creatingcomfortable retirement posts for themselveswhile causing more trouble and expense forpachinko businesses than the yakuza ever did.

As Peter Hill says, ‘The police and the yakuzaare ultimately rivals in the market forprotection’ (Hill 2006:258). The yakuzathemselves are alert to this phenomenon. ATokyo gangster says, ‘Ever since the copsstarted getting tough, the gangs have lost a lotof their power to take kickbacks and collectdebts. And what happens to that powervacuum? Out goes the yakuza gang and incomes the Sakuradamon gang [i.e. theM e t r o p o l i t a n P o l i c e D e p a r t m e n t ,headquartered in Sakuradamon]’. 4

January 2012: Police raid a yakuza gangheadquarter

One complicating factor is the prevalence ofbribery and protection agreements, and otherforms of collusion, between police and theyakuza. Police officers may expect or demandfree drinks and service in bars, clubs, andcommercial sex businesses within a gang’sterritory; the gang may offer these things freeto the police whether they demand it or not. Inreturn, police officers ignore minor legalviolations, or raid another gang’s territory. There is also a long tradition of plea-bargaining, known in yakuza slang as chinkoro,where gang members give the pol iceinformation in exchange for leniency. All sucharrangements are said to have become lessfrequent and less dependable in recent years.

Even so, cases where police officers forewarnlocal gang bosses about impending police raidsare still being reported.5 A Hokkaido detectivewho held the police record for most firearmsconfiscated in a single year eventuallyconfessed that he had cut a deal with aHakodate yakuza gang: they gave him the gunsand in return he pretended not to notice their2-ton shipment of cannabis and crystalmeth.6 In 2008 as many as 23 detectives andinspectors in the anti-yakuza squad of the AichiPolice Department were implicated in a briberyscandal involving the Blue Group, a Nagoya-

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based federation of brothel-owners andmoneylenders with strong ties to the Kōdō-kai.Though one police inspector, who admitted tohaving accepted a ‘loan’ of ¥8.5 million fromthe Blue Group, received an official reprimand,the internal investigation otherwise appears tohave fizzled out.7

Critics of the police can also point to poorresults. In 2010 the NPA arrested 25,681gangsters, roughly one-third of the entireyakuza population.8 That figure soundsimpressive, but it is unchanged in two decades:the police were also arresting one-third of theyakuza population in the early 1990s. Crucially,the prosecution rate of yakuza arrestees hasdeclined since then: in 1991 prosecutors filedcharges in 81% of cases; by 2010 that figurehad dropped to 68.2%.9 Despite all the newlegislation and talk of eradication, then, theyakuza are actually safer from prosecutiontoday than they were twenty years ago. Whilethere are various influential factors here –outsourcing by yakuza of overtly criminalactivities to non-yakuza collaborators, lesscooperation between the yakuza and the police,greater secrecy of yakuza operations, and so on– the main problem is of course the failure ofpolice to obtain strong evidence. The NPA oftenseems more concerned with fulfilling self-imposed quotas (number of guns confiscated,number of brothels raided, number of arrestsper month, etc.) than with putting thegangsters in jail. At the end of 2010 the NPAproudly announced that it had arrested arecord 21 bosses of the major (first-tier)Yamaguchi-gumi gangs that year. However,only seven were actually prosecuted and thecharges in each case were trifling: renting anapartment under a false name, erecting abuilding without a permit, etc.10 While there isno question that police raids of yakuza-runbusinesses and confiscations of yakuza profitsare hurting the yakuza financially, the fallingnumber of prosecutions suggests that manyarrests constitute little more than harassment.

There remains a strong tendency amongJapanese police detectives to base their caseson confessions, which they do not hesitate tocoerce from suspects. Courts have been lesstolerant of this practice in recent years. Thetwo Kudō-kai gangsters acquitted of murderinga rival in the 2010 case mentioned earlier hadboth signed their names to confessionshelpfully printed out for them by detectives.The judge deemed the confessions to beunreliable, and the only other evidence wascircumstantial.11

Though elements of the Japanese media areresistant to police requests for yet morepowers, it must be noted that some aspects ofJapan’s organized crime laws are still mild incomparison with those of other developedcountries. Japan’s Wiretapping Law, passed in2000, allows wiretapping (tsūshin bōju: theinterception of telephone or internetcommunications, not the use of buggingdevices) only in the most serious cases, such asgun-running and gangland murder plots. In2010 investigators used wiretaps in just 10cases, from which, however, they made arecord 47 arrests.12 Sting operations (otori-sōsa) have been legal in Japan only since 2004and are mostly confined to street-level drugbusts where policemen pose as dealers orbuyers. Deep undercover operations by lawenforcement agents within yakuza gangs, in themanner of mafia-infiltrations by FBI agents inthe US, do not appear to have been attemptedand would in any case have questionablelegality.

Another problem in the past has been the lackof an effective witness protection program inJapan. Although police will provide ad hoc‘personal protection’ (shinpen hogo) for trialwitnesses, there is no nationwide program foroffering new identities to those who havetestified and permanently relocating them andtheir families. Concerns about intimidationwere raised in the Kudō-kai murder trial, andpolice are currently keeping close guard over

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the home of the chief witness in the extortioncase against Kōdō-kai chairman Takayama.However, given the stream of lawsuits nowbeing brought against the Yamaguchi-gumigodfather, and against other bosses and seniorgangsters, it is clear that the lack of a witnessprotection program is no longer a strongdisincentive to litigants or witnesses. It seemsthat the Japanese do not fear the yakuza asmuch as they used to.

Yakuza-exclusion ordinances

The latest countermeasures devised andpromoted by NPA bureaucrats are the yakuza-exclusion ordinances, introduced nationwide in2011. These ordinances oblige individuals andcompanies to ‘endeavor’ (tsutomeru) to confirmthey are not ‘granting profits’ (rieki kyōyo) toany individual or company having ‘closecontact’ (missetsu na kankei) with a yakuzagang or gang member.13 While legal expertshave criticized the vagueness of these terms,many pundits see this vagueness as strategic. ‘It’s in the interest of the authorities to makethe rules unclear,’ says one journalist, ‘becausethen everyone will end up looking to the policefor the final decision, which is exactly what thepolice want’.14 To facilitate that process theNPA has set up onl ine and telephoneinformation services for people seekingclarification of ordinance stipulations.15 Inaddition, following a surge in shootingincidents in 2011 the NPA has recentlyannounced the formation of new ‘anti-yakuzaprotection squads’ to guard individuals andcompanies that might be at risk of attack fromyakuza gangs. Each prefectural policedepartment will have a ‘director of protection’(hogo taisakukan) to assess threats and protectthe public from yakuza violence. Criticsgrumble that the police ought to be doing thisalready.16

Yamaguchi-gumi godfather Tsukasa gave a rarenewspaper interview to denounce the exclusionordinances as a ‘policy of social discrimination’

(mibun seisaku) against the yakuza.17 But fewpeople sympathize with the gangsters. Themain concern is the effect of the ordinances onlegitimate business. Initial fears that theordinances would be disadvantageous to thosewho work innocently for the yakuza (caterers,couriers, entertainers, etc.) have been justified:many gangs have cancelled long-standingcontracts for lunch boxes, seasonal gifts, andbanquet halls.18 Disruption of corporate deals isanother possibility. A law professor asks, ‘If aprivate equity fund launches a tender offer fora major Japanese company, does it have to getall the shareholders to swear they are notgangsters and cancel the whole transaction if itturns out one of them is? Can ‘clean’shareholders who oppose the bid use anunsupported claim that other shareholders areyakuza-tainted to argue that an investmentfund should go away?’19

The penalties for non-compliance with theexclusion ordinances are not severe: amaximum fine of ¥500,000 or imprisonment ofup to one year. The significance of thelegislation is in the augmented powers grantedto police, who are permitted to enter andsearch the property of any individual orcompany they suspect of non-compliance,apparently without a warrant. The potential forabuse is obvious, and some highly questionablecases are already coming to light. Police inFukuoka recently cautioned a printing firm thathad made business cards for a yakuza boss.20 Itis easy to imagine how that situation will playout: to prevent further harassment the owner ofthe printing firm will need to ingratiate himselfwith the local police department. For thesereasons, many commentators view theexclusion ordinances as little more thanempire-building by the NPA.

Civic anti-yakuza campaigns

The new century has seen the rise of vigorousanti-yakuza campaigns organized by citizens’groups, which work in close cooperation with

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police. Campaigners distribute posters andpamphlets, publicize their activities on localradio stations, and run confidential advisoryservices for people with yakuza-relatedproblems. Police officers visit businesses,factories, town halls, and temples to giveinstructions on how to deal with yakuzaintimidation. Civic anti-yakuza demonstrationshave become strident and combative in waysnot seen before. Aware that the gangstraditionally flaunt their presence at festivals,many citizens’ groups now sponsor an ‘anti-yakuza float’ in their local festival procession.In February 2010 a cit izens group inWakayama attracted attention by installingtheir newly established anti-yakuza center in anof f i ce that had prev ious ly been theheadquarters of the local yakuza gang.21

Anti-yakuza campaigners at a baseball game

Some campaigners have confronted the yakuzadirectly by staging loud demonstrations in frontof buildings where gangs have purchased officespace. In 2009 protestors in Tokyo successfullystalled an attempt by the Inagawa-kai to moveits headquarters from Roppongi to Akasaka. Western journalists have hailed these sorts ofcampaigns as ‘remarkable act[s] of collectivecourage’.2 2 But similar campaigns aresometimes waged against pachinko halls andfuneral parlors. No one wants to eradicatefuneral parlors; people just don’t want one neartheir own home or place of business. Localswho campaign against yakuza offices claim to

be worried about their children (‘There is anelementary school only two hundred metersaway’) or their own safety (‘We might getcaught in the crossfire of a gang war’).23 It ismore likely that they have money on theirminds. The known presence of a yakuza officecan adversely affect house prices in thesurrounding area, or make property moredifficult to sell. Owners of unlicensed bars,mahjong parlors, sex clubs, and other shadybusinesses have most to lose, since a yakuzagang can introduce protection rackets that lastfor decades. Even when successful, local anti-yakuza campaigns do not force the gangs todisband, but only to look for space elsewhere.While this is no doubt troublesome for thegangs, it is unlikely to disrupt their activities inany significant way. No one has producedevidence to show that forced relocations ofyakuza offices actually reduce organized crime.We must therefore assume that the sum effectof these campaigns is only to encourage theyakuza toward greater secrecy, duplicity, andruthlessness, thereby potentially worsening theoverall situation.

A few civic centers have set up employmentprograms to help ex-yakuza secure work. Butthe organizers concede that these programshave been unsuccessful, supposedly due to ‘theunwillingness of former gang members to doordinary jobs, their sometimes poor physicalhealth, their lack of proper work skills, andother unfavorable factors such as their tattoosand missing fingers’, with the result that, in themajority of cases, ‘even those individuals whomanaged to find employment did not stick withit for very long’ (Bōtsui sentā 2003:44).

The torrent of lawsuits, injunctions, appeals,summonses, petitions, indemnity claims andother civil actions generated by citizens’ groupsand anti-yakuza campaigners around thecountry means plenty of work for Japan’sattorneys. It is perhaps no surprise, then, thatone of the driving forces behind the anti-yakuzacampaigns is the Japan Federation of Bar

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Associations (JFBA). Since 2000 the JFBA haspublished a plethora of anti-yakuza bulletinsand booklets. Though these publications lackmethodological discipline and routinely sink tothe level of scaremongering, on a social levelthey have more influence than NPA reports,which are not read widely by the generalpublic. JFBA publications unfailingly paint adire picture, in which peaceful and law-abidingcommunities are menaced on all sides by theforces of evil. The yakuza, it seems, are onlythe tip of the iceberg. JFBA publications haverecently begun to direct attention beyond thegangs towards more nebulous ‘antisocialforces’ (hanshakai-teki seiryoku), which it says,lurk behind every criminal act.24

But what exactly is an antisocial force?According to the JFBA, an antisocial force is‘any group or individual who employs violence,intimidation, or fraudulent means to secureillicit financial gain’ (JFBA 2010:151). In Japan,as elsewhere, corruption can reach to thehighest levels of authority, and considering thatit is not extraordinary for Japanese politiciansand even prime ministers to use fraudulentmeans to secure illicit financial gain, onewonders how far the JFBA intends to take itscrusade.25 Nonetheless, campaigners andpolicymakers alike have embraced the newjargon. A number of business consultants andcrisis-management firms now offer screeningservices to assist clients in identifyingsupposedly suspicious businesses or individualsoperating in the corporate world. One suchagency charges its clients an annual fee of ¥3million for access to its ‘antisocial forces’database.26

There are already concerns that even the term‘antisocial forces’ may not be sufficientlymalleable. After an NPA report mentioned thedifficulty of monitoring ‘persons whocollaborate with the yakuza’, the JFBA pickedup on the expression. In its latest publicationsthe JFBA recommends targeting not only theyakuza gangsters but also their ‘collaborators’

(kyōseisha), specifically, ‘people who hide theirconnections to yakuza gangs while cooperatingwith them in money-making enterprises, or whouse the intimidating power, informationnetworks, and financial resources of the yakuzato increase their own profits’; in short, ‘anyonewho can be shown to have a personal orfinancial connection to yakuza groups’ (JFBA2010:149-151).27

Zeal for yakuza-hunting has recentlyintensified. There are now nearly 4,000 anti-yakuza volunteer groups in Tokyo alone. Thesegroups compile lists of suspected gangsters andcollaborators and circulate them to estateagents, landlords, hotels, and small businessowners. There are campaigns to preventyakuza from participating in public auctions, tostop them from receiving welfare benefits, andto expel them from public housing projects. AnOsaka judge recently sentenced a yakuza bossto ten months in jail for offering financial aid tothe family of an incarcerated subordinate, anact of charity made unlawful by yet anotheraddition to the Anti-Yakuza Law.28 A Fukuokajudge jailed a yakuza boss for seven months for‘exposing a tattoo in a bathing house’.29 Ayakuza who concealed his gang affiliation whenapplying for membership of a golf club wasarrested and charged with fraud.30 Manyconvenience stores and booksellers have cededto pressure from campaigners and removedyakuza-themed comics from their shelves. Consorting with yakuza has become a career-killer for celebrities: in August 2011 popularcomedian Shimada Shinsuke felt obliged toretire from show business after the presspublicized his friendship with HashimotoHirofumi, boss of the Kyokushin Rengō-kai inOsaka.31

Police have repeatedly urged hotels and hotspring resorts to refuse their services to all‘yakuza-connected persons’ (bōryokudankankeisha). The JFBA has reminded hotelowners that they are legally entitled to refuseboard to ‘persons who are likely to commit

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i l legal acts such as gambling’ ( JFBA2004:132-133). Under pressure from police, theSumo Federation has announced a ban onyakuza members from the special seating areaaround the ring, which is reserved forindividuals who have made sizeable donationsto the Federation. The ban is being strictlyenforced: on January 18, 2010, the ninth day ofthe New Year tournament at Ryōgoku Stadium,police and stadium officials escorted asuspected Sumiyoshi-kai boss from the specialseating area.32 Even Buddhist temples havebeen persuaded to impose bans on worship bymembers of yakuza gangs.33

Many of these new prohibitions appear to bepurely discriminatory, with no direct or obviousrelevance to crime control. Often they apply notonly to members of yakuza gangs but also totheir families and dependents. Again, criticspoint to the vagueness of the phrase ‘yakuza-connected persons’ and assert the infeasibilityof effective implementation.3 4 The fewgangsters who have spoken out seem genuinelydismayed by the scale and animosity of theanti-yakuza movement. ‘People are talkingabout us yakuza as if we are the scum of theearth,’ laments a recently retired gang boss,‘but I have to ask: Are non-yakuza really suchwonderful people?’ (Gōtō 2010:291).

Organized crime and minorities

As indicated above, the prevailing trend todayis to define yakuza as a distinct social classrather than as an individual career choice. Oneconsequence of this has been to fuel a commoninclination to blame organized crime on sociallymarginalized groups.

The issue is intrinsic to the yakuza concept.Though the word yakuza today denotes agangster, its original meaning was ‘useless’:the yakuza are the useless garbage at thebottom of society.35 The men who, in the early1900s, banded together to form the first yakuzagangs were mostly day-laborers and migrant

workers. Yakuza historians assume that theseearly gangs would have included large numbersof so-called Burakumin, socially stigmatizedJapanese who are said to be descended fromfeudal outcastes. A century later, theconnection between yakuza and Burakuminremains strong in the public consciousness. InJapanese libraries, books on the yakuza areinvariably stacked alongside books on theBurakumin, as if they address the samefundamental issue. The yakuza themselvesexploit the situation by posing as Burakuminrights groups and pressuring businesses to paythem compensation or hush money.

Another minority group commonly linked to theyakuza is Japan’s Korean community. This linkis more recent: before the war, anti-Koreansentiment was so intense that Koreans did noteven have the freedom to join the yakuza.36 Inthe postwar black market economy Koreans inJapan took advantage of their overseasconnections to secure lucrative smugglingroutes, and many of these Korean smugglinggangs were eventually subsumed into the bigyakuza syndicates. For much of the postwarperiod Burakumin and Koreans suffered similarforms of social discrimination, being kept at thebottom of the work pile and often livingtogether in impoverished areas wheregambling, smuggling, and gang activity werecommon.37

Today, it is very difficult to quantify the ethnicor genealogic composition of the yakuza. TheBurakumin population is known to beparticularly dense in Hyōgo prefecture, homeof the Yamaguchi-gumi. On the other hand, thesecond largest yakuza syndicate, theSumiyoshi-kai, has for decades been based incentral Tokyo and operates heavily in Ginza, anarea not known for Burakumin slums. Theimportance of Korea as a transshipment pointfor Japan’s drugs will naturally have createdopportunities for Koreans resident in Japan.Kiyota Jirō, who became fifth godfather of theInagawa-kai in April 2010, is a Japan-born

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Korean national; he is, however, the firstKorean to lead the syndicate in its 60-yearhistory.

Inagawa-kai godfather Kiyota Jiro sipsceremonial sake

What we observe in recent years is theentrance of familiar yet unsubstantiatedpopu lar assumpt ions about yakuzae t h n i c i t y / g e n e a l o g y i n t o o f f i c i a lpronouncements on organized crime. Thefollowing remarks are extracted from a speechby Suganuma Mitsuhiro, former bureau chief atthe Public Security Intelligence Agency (PSIA),Japan’s national intelligence agency, whichinvestigates terrorist organizations,international crime syndicates, and the majoryakuza gangs: "The composition of the 90,000members of Japan’s yakuza, including both full-time and part-time members, is as follows: 60%of all yakuza members are persons connectedto the Dōwa Projects [dōwa no kankeisha],

another 30% are resident Koreans [zainichi],and the remaining 10% are either Chinese ornon-Dōwa Japanese’."38

The Dōwa (Assimilation) Projects were socialprograms implemented between 1969 and 2002with the aim of improving the l ives ofBurakumin; thus ‘persons connected to theDōwa projects’ is merely a euphemism forBurakumin. By Suganuma’s own admissionthese figures were not obtained via scientificmeans.39 In the context of his speech thedistasteful insinuation is that the criminality ofthe yakuza is unsurprising given that most areof foreign or ‘impure’ stock. As criminologistshave long pointed out, law enforcementofficials everywhere have strong incentives topromulgate these sorts of ‘alien conspiracy’theories of organized crime: ‘It explains theirinability to eliminate organized crime, itdisguises the role of political and businesscorruption in organized crime, and it providesfertile ground for new resources, powers, andbureaucratic expansion’ (Lyman & Potter2000:65-6).

NPA posters depict the yakuza as un-Japanese

Contrary to Suganuma’s statements, theconsensus among yakuza-watchers today is thatthe gangs have drifted far from their originalsocial base. Miyazaki Manabu, a Burakuminwhose father was a yakuza boss in Kyoto in the1950s, knows the situation well. As Miyazaki

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sees it, the early yakuza functioned as amedium between the lower or peripheral partsof society and the mainstream (as regulators ofthe urban underclass, as survival mechanismsfor marginalized groups, etc.). The modernyakuza have not forfeited this role entirely, asseen in their recruitment drive for theFukushima power plant. But Miyazaki insiststhat they now most ly operate withinmainstream society (as money-lenders,conmen, drug-dealers, thieves, etc.). Thus the21st-century yakuza do not wield the socialpower of the early gangs, which were rooted inthe bottom layers of Japanese society: ‘Nowthose roots have vanished, they have meltedinto society as a whole, and the yakuza gangshave turned into mafias’ (Miyazaki 2007:375).

Yakuza historian Ino Kenji has reached thesame conclusion. In his 1993 history of theyakuza in the Showa period Ino hailed theyakuza gangs as ‘rebel armies at the bottom ofJapanese society’ whose soldiers came mostlyfrom the ‘discriminated social stratum’ (Ino1993:303). Today he sees things differently:‘My impression is that dropouts frommainstream society now make up the large partof the yakuza population’ (Ino 2008:262).Socio logis t Yamada Hideo points toimprovements in educational and jobopportunities for minority groups such asBurakumin and Koreans, and to economicconstraints on the gangs themselves. Withunemployment rates currently high in Japanthere are plenty of men looking for work, butthe gangs cannot afford to take them: ‘Whenthe economy was booming, the yakuza gangswere the last place of refuge for the poor, theones society had left behind. But today thegangs will only accept men who they know areeconomically viable’ (Yamada 2010:95).

Foreign crime gangs in Japan

The influx of foreign visitors and immigrantsthat followed relaxations of Japaneseimmigration laws during the 1990s has

introduced a variety of other nationalities intothe discourse on organized crime. In the past,criminologists have criticized NPA publicationsfor portraying crime statistics ‘in such a way asto convey the greatest sense of a foreign threat’(Friman 1996:971). Although there have beensome improvements, alien conspiracy theoriesstill thrive. Thus the latest NPA White Paper,after disclosing that the annual number offoreigners arrested in Japan has dropped forthe sixth consecutive year (to just under 7,000),offers this analysis:

The total number of arrestsrelating to crimes committed byforeigners in Japan showed adecrease in 2010. Nonetheless,considered in the context ofcriminal globalization, where Japanis being infiltrated by internationalcrime gangs comprising criminalsof increasingly diverse nationalitiesand there is a general spread ofcriminal activities around theworld, the problem of foreignerscoming to Japan to commit crimeremains severe (NPA 2011c:23).

Public discussion of organized crimes byforeigners, and by Asian nationals in particular,is increasingly tinged with racist innuendo orirrationally linked to war history. On thealleged rise of Chinese street gangs in Tokyo’sShinjuku ward one tabloid journalist exclaims,‘The Chinese gangs have played the Japaneseyakuza like puppets and bought up land inShinjuku as if they were taking revenge for thewar. Exploiting their status as victors in thewar, they have helped themselves to ourentertainment district’ (Mook 2005:78). Speaking before Ground Self-Defense Forcesin April 2000, the governor of Tokyo, IshiharaShintarō, blamed Japan’s supposedlydeteriorating public safety levels on ‘violentcrimes by sangokujin’ (‘people from the threecountries’, a wartime pejorative for Chinese,

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Korean, and Taiwanese nationals).40 In 2007 amanga-style book entitled Gaijin hanzai urafairu (Secret Files on Crimes by Foreigners)incited a storm of complaints from foreignresidents for its unashamedly xenophobic tone. The editor defended the publication as anattempt to initiate serious discussion, andcharacterized general anxiety about the issueof crimes by foreigners as follows: ‘Whether it’sa North Korean agent kidnapping ourdaughters or a Chinese thief invading ourhomes, many Japanese are convinced thatforeigners should be treated with suspicion andfear’.41

Japanese bloggers similarly disseminatepoisonous myths about foreigners andorganized crime. As above, Koreans andChinese are the main targets. Rumi Sakamoto,who has examined the phenomenon of Japaneseonline xenophobia, notes that ‘Koreans areassociated with excrement, rubbish, publicurination, stealing, prostitution, violence,illegal activity and obscenity.’42 A former policedetective has claimed in print that Chinesegangsters will kill anyone in Japan for¥500,000.43

Undeniably, foreigners have been involved insome conspicuous organized crimes in Japan.On December 22, 2001 a North Koreanespionage boat sank off the coast of Kyushuafter exchanging gunfire with JapaneseCoastguard patrol boats; investigatorsrecovered a cell phone from the wreckage andfound that 120 calls had been placed to aKorean-born yakuza boss in Tokyo. Japanesenewspapers headlined: ‘North Korea raisescash by se l l ing crysta l meth [ in ourcountry]’ . 4 4 The biggest robbery everperpetrated in Japan, the ¥3.5 billion diamondheist from Ginza jewelers Le Supre-DiamantCouture De Maki in March 2004, was the workof a Serbia- and Montenegro-based gang ofthieves whom Interpol have nicknamed ‘ThePink Panthers’.45 In March 2005 an Iranian manwas shot dead in a Roppongi bar amid a

territorial dispute between rival Iranian drugdealers.46 In April 2006 a Côte d’Ivoire diplomatleft Japan in a hurry after police revealed thathe had allowed a gang of yakuza gamblers touse his luxury apartment as a baccaratpit.47 Official reports on foreign criminals inJapan now feature a glittering internationalcast: Brazilian burglars, Turkish smugglers,Nigerian car-thieves, Peruvian drug-traffickers,Thai marriage-brokers, etc. The stories can becolorful but the numbers remain extremelysmall: ‘In regard to internationally activecriminal organizations which infiltrated Japanduring 2010, 15 people were arrested for 112offences’ (NPA 2011b:11). Set againstdevelopments in transnational organized crimeelsewhere – illicit transfers of high-gradeweapons by the Russian Mob, worldwidedistribution of heroin and opium by Chinesetriads – Japan’s problems are minor.

Among the Japanese public it is not thefrequency so much as the perceived violentnature of crimes committed by foreigners thatcauses concern. The yakuza are image-conscious; they know that too much visibleviolence is bad for business. Foreign criminalstargeting Japan, especially those who enter thecountry illegally, are mostly short-termopportunists whose only concern is to get awaysafely. Some are wanted by police in theirhome countries and fear that capture in Japanwill mean deportation and possibly execution;hence they can be dangerous when challenged.In June 2007 a policeman responding to whathe thought was a routine shoplifting incident ina Saitama drug store was attacked and slashedwith a craft knife; he had crossed paths with asix-man Vietnamese shoplifting gang.48 Therehave been several incidents where commutersrequired medical attention after gangs ofKorean pickpockets released tear gas insideJ a p a n e s e t r a i n s t a t i o n s t o e v a d earrest.49 Incidents like these understandablyattract frenzied media attention, which in turncan prompt careless generalizations aboutforeigners and organized crime.

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As usual, the JFBA fans the flames by warningthe Japanese public that ‘organized gangs ofcriminal foreigners are availing themselves ofthe rich information and personnel networks ofthe yakuza’ to carry out crimes such as‘smuggling operations, theft of luxury cars forsale overseas, illegal work, distribution ofillegal narcotics, and the sale of firearms’ (JFBA2004:44). There are no untruths here, only alack of context and proportion, since JFBAreports are mostly devoid of statistical data.For example, while Japan depends on overseassuppliers for its illegal drugs, the drug problemitself is very much a domestic one – and ayakuza one: of the 20,624 people arrested fordrug-related offences in Japan during 2010,538 (3.7%) were foreigners and 7,060 (48.6%)were Japanese yakuza.50

Chinese crime gangs in Japan

A statistic well-publicized by the Japanesemedia in recent years is that nearly half of thecrimes by foreigners in Japan are committed byChinese. This figure is accurate.51 In the firstdecade of this century the number of Chinesenationals registered in Japan rose from 300,000to 680,000, and the crime rate has risenaccordingly. Consequently, the activities ofChinese crime gangs in Japan have come underthe spotlight.

Police note ‘a very close association betweenChinese crime gangs and the yakuza’ (NPA2011b:28). Gangs of Chinese thieves work inconjunction with the yakuza, who, for a cut ofthe profits, offer information and logisticalsupport (e.g. by directing the thieves to housesof wealthy persons). Recently, Chinese thieveshave been avoiding city areas and insteadtargeting provincial regions where there is arelatively low awareness of crime, committingburglaries and robberies, and sometimesstealing ATMs. The gangs work intensivelywhile traveling around Japan. A gang of tenChinese apprehended in Osaka in July 2010was charged with 152 counts of burglary in half

a dozen prefectures; the total value of thestolen goods was estimated at more than ¥140million.52

Chinese gangs running protection rackets inentertainment districts have sometimes comeinto conflict with the yakuza. Once content toconfine their activities to the recognizedChinatown districts of Yokohama, Kobe, andNagasaki, in recent years Chinese street gangshave exhibited a greater boldness. InSeptember 2002 three Chinese men belongingto a gang calling itself the Tōhoku gurūpu(Northeast Group) shot dead two high-rankingmembers of the Sumiyoshi-kai in a coffee shopnear Shinjuku Station. The murders triggered aspate of attacks on Chinese-owned businessesaround Shinjuku, and verbal attacks on Chinain the Japanese media.5 3 That Chinesegangsters could dare to challenge one of themost powerful yakuza syndicates in this wayseems to have offended Japanese patrioticpride. The police promptly set up a so-called‘environmental clean-up program’ in Shinjuku,the dubious implication being that the area wasclean until the Chinese arrived.54

Though police and news media identify thesegangs as ‘Chinese mafia’ (Chūgoku mafuia),this term is somewhat misleading. The Chinesegangsters who cause the sort of violence thatmakes news headlines belong to fairly smallstreet gangs; contrary to suggestions in theJapanese press, there is little evidence thatthey are extensions of mainland Chinese crimesyndicates. In the early 2000s, for example, itwas being reported that the 14K, the notoriousHong Kong triad syndicate, had establishedoffices in half a dozen Japanese cities andalready boasted an army of several thousandmen; th i s turned out to be a case o fscaremongering. With the exception of the so-called shé tóu (Snakeheads), specialists inhuman-trafficking, the Chinese gangs active inJapan are for the most part independent andindigenous: they are loosely organized,opportunistic groups that were formed in

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Japan, though they often contain migrant triadmembers and cooperate with mainlandsyndicates in money-laundering and smugglingoperations.55

It is also worth noting here that Chinese youthsare a forceful presence in the world of thebōsōzoku (motorcycle gangs). One of thelargest syndicates in Japan at the moment isthe Akabane Kajin Renmei-kai (AkabaneChinese Federation, known as the ‘Chai-ren’). Chinese motorcycle gangs are better

organized than their Japanese counterparts andhave access to a wider range of resources,being generously supported by an oldergeneration of Chinese males. Whereas theJapanese gangs spend much of their timefighting each other, a sense of shared ethnicityamong the Chinese seems to cancel out internalrivalries, enabling them to direct their energiesoutward.

Chinese youth gangs cause problems in theirlocal areas by committing robberies,attempting to extort security payments frombars and brothels, and fighting with customers.They also indulge in recreational violence inthe manner of European soccer hooligans,posting challenges to Japanese gangs on theinternet and advertising locations forprearranged brawls. Excepting the occasionalfatal lynching, these activities take place wellbelow the radar of police and media scrutiny.To proprietors of local bars and brothels,however, trouble caused by these Chinesegangs constitutes one reason to pay protectionmoney to the yakuza. Hence a persistentunderworld rumor that the yakuza actually paythe Chinese to cause the trouble.

Youth gangs, both Chinese and Japanese, canearn money from enforcement and securitywork for clubs, and from street-level drug-dealing. Yakuza bosses sometimes hire localstreet gangs (once known in Japanese asgurentai, now more often called gyangu) topatrol the entertainment districts as on-call

bouncers. A customer refusing to pay his bill ata hostess bar or massage parlor will withinminutes be obliged to explain himself tomembers of the local gyangu, who usually arenot good listeners.

Something must be said about the secretunderworld society known as the Doragon(Dragon). This originated in the late 1980s as amotorcycle gang whose members were childrenof Japanese who had returned belatedly toJapan from China after being stranded at theend of the war. Doragon members gainednotoriety in the 1990s for some audaciousdisplays of violence, including attacks on policeboxes and police cars.56 The gang has sinceswelled in size and today operates throughoutthe Kantō region. Police have little data on theDoragon. It is possibly more an underworldguanxi network than a gang. Much of itsbusiness is apparently legitimate: nightclubs,strip clubs, call-girl agencies, and importcompanies. But in the past Doragon membershave clashed violently with one of the majoryakuza syndicates over territorial rights inentertainment districts. Police classify theDoragon as a ‘Chinese mafia’ and accuse it ofextortion, drug-trafficking, and multiplemurders.57

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1998: An early article on the Doragon, ‘thebaddest motorcycle gang in Japan’. The ganghas since developed into an underworldfraternity.

The Japanese press has recently begunreporting on the Doragon more closely, often inthe hyperbolic language reserved for foreigncriminals. On the evening of June 14, 2011 a45-year-old Tokyo yakuza got into an argumentwith a man unknown to him in front of aChinese restaurant in Kinshichō. The manfetched a carving knife from the restaurantand, after a chase, succeeded in slicing off oneof the gangster’s ears. Police arrested theattacker and some weeks later identified him asa senior member of the Doragon. Media reportsstressed the ‘cruelty’ of the attack, as ifJapanese gangsters never do any slicing.58

Aside from such isolated incidents, there havebeen few reports of tension between the yakuzaand Chinese gangs in recent years. Since Japanbanned North Korean ships from entering its

ports in 2003, most of the amphetaminesreaching Japan now come from or via China.The yakuza thus have good reason to forgepartnerships with Chinese gangs. There arealso signs of contact at executive level: yakuzarepresentatives were spotted among mournersat the funeral of Lee Chao-hsiung, leader ofTaiwan’s Big Lake Gang, in April 2010.59 In a2011 survey of imprisoned yakuza gangmembers, 11.3% of respondents said that theirgang had a working relationship with a Chinesecrime gang; strikingly, 7.5% of these said thatthe Chinese gang was the dominant partner inthe relationship. The main purposes ofinteraction were exchange of information,disposal of stolen property, and drugdeals.60 Just as the Italian Mafia has grudginglyaccepted the presence of Albanian crime gangsin Italy, the yakuza appear to have accepted theChinese gangs, and the two sides have settledinto a harmonious and mutually profitablecoexistence.

Popular perceptions of the yakuza

Support for the anti-yakuza movement is notuniversal. Some analysts dismiss it as astrategic distraction from more seriousproblems such as rising poverty, irregularitiesin the labor market, and chronic socialinequality.61 Others question the tactics of anti-yakuza campaigners and the legality of thecountermeasures. Akahata, the newspaper ofthe Japanese Communist Party, has condemnedsome recent amendments to the Anti-YakuzaLaw as infringements of basic civil liberties. The old argument that Japanese society isbetter off with the yakuza than without themstill has its advocates. One pundit asks, ‘Whichdo we really want: a well-ordered underworldor a chaotic underworld? Getting rid of theyakuza would definitely not mean thate v e r y t h i n g b e c o m e s c l e a n a n dsafe.’62 Supporters of the ‘necessary evil’argument insist that many Japanese voluntarilytake their problems to the yakuza, and point tothe third of the three imperatives posted at the

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entrances to most Japanese banks and postoffices: ‘Yakuza: don’t fear them, don’t paythem, don’t use them’.63

In August 2011 a popular talk show host namedOgura Tomoaki caused controversy by makingthe following comments in relation to theyakuza-exclusion ordinances during a livebroadcast:

‘The fact is, when you’ve got aproblem that no one else can solve– not the police, not your lawyer,your agent, your company, orwhatever – at times like that thereare people who can apply a bit ofpressure and solve it for you. Pressure groups, and, well okay,people in the underworld…. Eventhough you know it’s wrong,sometimes it’s the only way to getyour problem sorted out.’64

Though various indignant luminaries, includinga Diet member, censured Ogura during thenext few days, his comments can probably betaken as representative of a small but solidminority of Japanese who accept the role of theyakuza as unofficial enforcers in Japanesesociety.

Police acknowledge the ambivalence of publicattitudes toward the yakuza:

As is well known, yakuza gangs arethe largest criminal organizationsin Japan. They infest every regionof the country, using violence tointimidate the public. It cannot bedenied, however, that, due toconfusion over noble-soundingwords such as ninkyō (yakuzanotion of chivalry) and j ingi(yakuza just ice) , there is apernicious tendency in our society

to tolerate the existence of thesegangs, or to regard them asexciting and exotic (NPA 2007a:1).

Naturally, the yakuza take every opportunity toencourage this tendency. Their mock-heroicresponse to the Tōhoku earthquake andtsunami was a prime example. Another yakuzapublic relations effort is the Zenkoku KokudoDōmei (National Purification League), aregistered political organization thatsupposedly works to rid Japan of drugs; theLeague is run from the headquarters of theYamaguchi-gumi. While the police insinuatethat the yakuza are un-Japanese, yakuza like topresent themselves as ultra-Japanese: ferventpatriots, modern samurai, upholders of a feudalethic untouched by Westernization.

Few Japanese, if any, accept that view of theyakuza today. Nonetheless, it appears thatawareness of the fundamental criminality of theyakuza does not preclude a degree of respectfor their achievements. Young Yakuza, aFrench-made movie-documentary of 2007,follows the progress of a troublesome Tokyoboy whose despairing mother entrusts him tothe care of her local yakuza gang, members ofthe Inagawa-kai. ‘Don’t worry,’ one of themreassures her, ‘we’ll teach your son all heneeds to know about the importance ofetiquette’.65 The mother makes a solemn bow,sealing her son’s fate. The scene is apparentlynot uncommon, and surely underscores theefficacy of yakuza self-projection techniques.We see the new recruit shopping for the gang’sgroceries, folding table napkins, serving tea,and kneeling nervously at his boss’s feet toreceive his end-of-year bonus. ‘The underworldhas its own laws,’ the boss growls at thecamera, ‘and they’re tougher than any you’llfind in the ordinary world’.66

The range of popular perceptions of the yakuzacan be gauged from the titles of some recentJapanese books: Management Skills of theYamaguchi-gumi (2005), Yakuza Techniques for

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Overcoming Business Hurdles throughSuccessful Speaking and Listening (2006),Modern Yakuza Tips for Making Cash (2008),the ominous-sounding Yakuza Techniques forDealing with Complaints (2010), and, forromantic hopefuls, Choosing your Man: YakuzaTips for Telling a Winner from a Loser(2008).67 Frivolous though they are, suchpublications obviously pander to a pervasiveand envious admiration of perceived yakuzaskills. More than chivalry, it seems, it is thesheer survivability of the yakuza thatcommands respect.

Yakuza are conscious of their internationalnotoriety and welcome attention from foreignjournalists, whose gullibility they exploit todisseminate yakuza propaganda. A 2009 CBSreport on the yakuza was full of preposterousyet unchallenged claims about the code of thesamurai, ninja-like yakuza assassinations onrainy days (to ‘wash away trace evidence’), andgraveyards of yakuza victims beneath Tokyobuildings. ‘We don’t hide the fact that we’reyakuza,’ declared one yakuza boss, speakinganonymously, with his voice disguised and hisface blacked out to conceal his identity.68

As evidenced in the CBS report, since the1970s the US government has consistentlyoverestimated the power of the yakuza and thethreat they pose to the US. In 2001 the FBImade special arrangements that enabled aYamaguchi-gumi gang boss, Gōtō Tadamasa, tovisit the US for a liver transplant. Gōtō hadapparently convinced the FBI that he couldprovide them with information about significantyakuza activity in the US. Of course he couldnot: his information led to the seizure of somehidden yakuza money, nothing more. Afterreceiving his new liver the old crook hurriedback to Japan, where he eventually shaved hishead and became a Buddhist monk – probablymore for the tax benefits than the spiritualones.

Yet US officials and journalists continue to

overestimate the yakuza. In July 2011 the StateDepartment included the yakuza on a list of‘ s ign i f icant t ransnat ional cr iminalorganizations’ which are ‘entrenched in theoperations of foreign governments’ and‘facilitate and aggravate violent civil conflicts’,t he reby ‘ undermin ing democra t i cinstitutions.’69 Yakuza-connected corporatefraudsters certainly pose a threat tointernational financial markets through theirscams and stock manipulations. Beyond that,however, the only notable yakuza operations inthe US so far this century have been money-laundering schemes.70

Conclusions

In the end there is probably no such thing aseradication of organized crime; there is onlycontainment. The notion of ‘yakuza exclusion’may also be rather naïve. In Japan, aselsewhere, identifiable social, cultural, andstructural conditions create roles for organizedcriminals. That is what Miyazaki Manabumeans when he says, ‘The yakuza are built intoJapanese society’.71 The prevalence of yakuzaproblem-solvers and enforcers, for instance,points to the lethargy of Japan’s judicialsystem. Rampant yakuza intervention in civildisputes highlights the lack of expeditiousdispute-resolution mechanisms. The readinessof land developers to seek yakuza help similarlyhighlights Japan’s complex and cumbersomeproperty laws. The success of yakuzaoperatives in the stock market has painfullydemonstrated the inadequacy of existingregulatory standards while exposing the extentof institutionalized malpractice. Corporate-levelblackmailers would soon go out of business ifthere were no shameful corporate secrets forthem to expose. Secret casinos and gamblingrings cannot operate efficiently without theorganizational and enforcement skills of theyakuza. The massive proliferation of yakuzamoneylenders in Japan during the last twodecades is obviously symptomatic of a wholehost of problems relating to, among other

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things, the job market, the savings and loansindustry, social welfare benefits, and thenational pension system. As long as industryrecruiters demand disposable laborers, yakuzabrokers will be there to supply them.

There is disagreement among the yakuzathemselves about where to go from here, withsome wanting to preserve the old yakuza waysand others keen to go completely underground.For many yakuza the exclusion ordinances havesimply increased the appeal of total secrecy.One gang boss says, ‘If the police are going toharass everyone like this just for being yakuza,or just for being associated with yakuza, thenwe might as well become a secret society likethe Mafia. Everything would be better for usthat way: the police wouldn’t be able to use theAnti-Yakuza Law on us, and if one of our boysgets busted he won’t get a longer sentence justbecause he’s a yakuza’.72 There is more to thisthan just tough talk. The Italian Mafia, acollection of invisible organizations with noofficial members or offices, survived acrackdown on organized crime that began inthe early 1990s, reorganized its operations, andis now believed to be Italy’s biggest business,accounting for 7% of the nation’s GDP.73

If the Yamaguchi-gumi continues to shed 2,000members a year, in less than ten years morethan half the syndicate will have goneunderground. This is sure to affect the way theyakuza run their rackets and structure theirorganizations. Many are confident that greatercovertness will make them more effective. Butit may also have detrimental consequences,such as weakening the grip of yakuza bossesover their underlings. On the other hand,perhaps a less rigidly hierarchical, more freelyentrepreneurial criminal underworld will holdgreater appeal for young Japanese men whosee the yakuza as just another orthodoxy. Tokeep track of such changes Japan’s lawenforcement agencies will need to revise theirinvestigative methods and sharpen theiranalyses of underworld trends. Equating crime

gangs with minority groups is unlikely toachieve effective crime control.

Despite the frantic pronouncements of the NPAand the popular media, Japan does not have asevere problem of foreign crime gangs.However, if the Chinese immigrant populationcontinues to swell, there is a possibility ofconflict between Chinese gangs and the yakuzaas the Chinese become less reliant on nativesupport.

It remains to be seen whether the exclusionordinances will have the intended effect ofstarving the yakuza of income. The sharp risein the number of shooting incidents in thesecond half of last year suggests that they arehaving some effect.

The yakuza will need to reinvent themselves ifthey hope to prosper in the future. Given theirimpress ive record of res i l ience andadaptability, the safe bet is that they willsucceed. To do so, however, will require moredrastic changes than any they accomplished inthe last century, and it looks increasingly likelythat those changes will mean the demise ofmany aspects of yakuza culture.

Andrew Rankin lived in Japan for nearlytwenty years and studied at Tokyo University.He is currently in the Japanese Department atCambridge University, writing up a PhDdissertation on Mishima Yukio’s non-fiction. Heis the author of Seppuku: A History of SamuraiS u i c i d e(http://www.amazon.com/Seppuku-History-Samu r a i - A n d r e w - R a n k i n / d p / 4 7 7 0 0 3 1 4 2 4 )(Kodansha International, 2011).

Recommended citation: Andrew Rankin,'Recent Trends in Organized Crime in Japan:Yakuza vs the Police, & Foreign Crime Gangs' -Part 2,’ The Asia-Pacific Journal Vol 10, Issue 7,No 1, February 20, 2012.

References

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Some of the information in this article wasobtained discreetly from underworld sources.

Akahata 2004: Shinbun Akahata shuzaihan,Uragane: keisatsu no hanzai (Secret Money:The Crimes of the Police). Shin NihonShuppansha.

Bōtsui sentā 2003: Bōtsui tomin sentā, 10-nenno ayumi (Ten years of the Citizens Center forEliminating Organized Crime). Bōryokudantsuihō undō suishin tomin sentā.

Fr iman 1996 : Fr iman , H . R i chard ,‘Gaijinhanzai: Immigrants and Drugs inContemporary Japan’. Asian Survey, Vol. 36No. 10, 1996.

Gōtō 2010: Gōtō Tadamasa, Habakari-nagara (Idon’t mean to be rude, but…). Takarajimasha.

Hill 2006: Hill, Peter, The Japanese Mafia:Yakuza, Law, and the State. Oxford UniversityPress.

Ino 1993: Ino Kenji, Yakuza to Nihonjin (TheYakuza and the Japanese). Gendai Shokan.

Ino 2008: Ino Kenji, Yamaguchi-gumi gairon (ASummary of the Yamaguchi-gumi). ChikumaShinsho.

Ishida 2002: Ishida Osamu, Chūgoku nokuroshakai (The Chinese Underworld). Kodansha.

JC 2009: Japan Customs and Tariff Bureau,Trends in Illicit Drugs and Firearms Smugglingin Japan (2009 Edition). Ministry of Finance.

JFBA 2004: Japan Federat ion of BarAssociations, Q&A Bōryokudan 110-ban: kishochishiki kara toraburu jirei to taiō made (Q&Aon Yakuza: from basic knowhow to examples oftrouble and countermeasures). MinjihōKenkyūkai.

JFBA 2010: Japan Federat ion of BarAssociations, Hanshakaiteki seiryoku to futō-

yōkyū no konzetsu e no chōsen to kadai(Challenges and Problems involved inEradicating Antisocial Forces and UndueClaims). Kinyū Zaisei Jijō Kenkyūkai.

Kaplan & Dubro 1987: Kaplan, David E., andDubro, Alec, Yakuza: Japan’s CriminalUnderworld. London: Queen Anne Press.

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Koizumi 1988: Koizumi Tesaburō, Suridaikenkyo (The Great Pickpocket Crackdown). Tōkyō Hōkei Gakuin Shuppan.

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Mizoguchi 2005: Mizoguchi Atsushi, Pachinko30-chōen no yami (Pachinko: ¥3 trillion

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darkness). Shōgakkan.

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Mizoguchi 2011c: Mizoguchi Atsushi,Bōryokudan (The Yakuza). Shinchō Shinsha.

Mizoguchi 2011d: Mizoguchi Atsushi,Yamaguchi-gumi dōran!! (Turmoil in theYamaguchi-gumi!!). Revised Edition. TakeShobō.

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Extortion in the Construction Industry).

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RFSS 2011: Shakai Anzen Kenkyū Zaidan(Research Foundation for Safe Society), Nicchūsoshiki hanzai kyōdō kenkyū, Nihon-gawahōkokusho: Bōryokudan jukeisha ni kansuruchōsa hōkokusho (Survey of IncarceratedYakuza Gang Members), June 2011.

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economy is eroding Japan). Shinchōsha.

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Yamada Hideo, ‘Kakusa shakai to yakuza’(Social Inequality and the Yakuza), in MiyazakiManabu and Ino Kenji (eds), Bōryokudankaimetsu-ron: yakuza haijo shakai no yukue(Theorizing Yakuza Annihilation: the Future ofSociety without the Yakuza). Chikuma Shobō.

Notes

1 Tamura 1974:262-64.

2 S E C T A w e b s i t e(http://www.hotsukyo.or.jp/pdf/document/yakuin.pdf).

3 Mizoguchi 2005:150.

4 Nakano 2010:117.

5 ‘2-keikan ga bōryokudan ni jōhō rōei ka’,Sankei shinbun, March 21, 2010.

6 ‘Moto binwan ‘akutoku deka’ ga gekihaku!Hokkaidō-kei no yami’, Shūkan asahi,December 9, 2011.

7 Mizoguchi 2011a:17-21.

8 NPA 2011a:7.

9 MOJ 2011:27.

10 ‘Keisatsuchō: Yamaguchi-gumi kaimetsusakusen de chika ni moguri mafuika surubōryokudan no kyōfu’, Gendai bujinesu, January13, 2011.

11 ‘Bōryokudan shasatsu jiken de muzai

hanketsu’, Sankei shinbun, February 7, 2011.

12 ‘Record 47 wiretap arrests made’, The JapanTimes, February 5, 2011.

13 MPD 2011:1.

14 ‘Nihon saidai no yakuza soshiki wa keisatsud e s u ‘ , B L O G O S(http://news.livedoor.com/article/detail/6019109/?p=5), November 11, 2011.

15 ‘Bōryokudan haijo jōrei no sōdan daiyaru osetchi’, Sankei shinbun, October 14, 2011.

16 ‘Keisatsuchō, minkan hogo kyōka e SPshinsetsu’, Nikkei shinbun, December 12, 2011.

17 ‘Zenkoku de bōhai-jōrei shikō: iyō na jidai gakita’, Sankei shinbun, October 1, 2011.

18 ‘Bōryokudan haijo jōrei: kisei-nogare niyakki’, Mainichi shinbun, December 2, 2011.

19 Jones, Colin P. A., ‘Tokyo Ordinance aPotential Contract Killer’, The Japan Times,November 15, 2011.

20 ‘Kōdō-kai no meishi seisaku: Fukuoka kenkeiga 5sha ni keikoku/chūi’, Yomiuri shinbun,October 14, 2011.

21 ‘Bōryokudan tsuihō kyoten wa moto no kumi-jimusho’, Sankei shinbun, February 1, 2010.

22 McNeill, David, & Adelstein, Jake, ‘YakuzaW a r s , ’ A s i a - P a c i f i c J o u r n a l(http://www.japanfocus.org/-Jake-Adelstein/2911), September 29, 2008.

23 ‘Kumi jimusho tachiiri kinshi’, Yomiurishinbun, April 28, 2011.

24 JFBA 2010:150.

25 Two Heisei-era prime ministers have so farresigned amid scandals regarding theirpersonal finances: Hosokawa Morihiro (1994)and Hatoyama Yukio (2010). In 2007

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Agriculture Minister Matsuoka Toshikatsucommitted suicide after it was learned that hehad been filing fraudulent expense claims. Most recently, former DPJ leader Ozawa Ichirōhas been charged with false accounting andfinancial irregularities relating to a landpurchase.

2 6 Security Network Protection (SNP(http://www.sp-network.co.jp/)).

27 See also Matsumoto 2008:148-154.

28 ‘Fukueki-chū kumiin ni hōshōkin’, Asahishinbun, February 28, 2011.

29 “Irezumi okotowari” mushi shi nyūyoku’,Yomiuri shinbun, January 12, 2010.

30 ‘Bōryokudan gorufujō riyō’, Sankei shinbun,July 27, 2011.

31 Mizoguchi 2011c:138.

32 ‘Bōryokudan kumichō dohyōshita de kansen’,Mainichi shinbun, January 26, 2010.

33 ‘Bōryokudan haijo no ugoki mo tsuyomarushūkyōkai’, Sankei shinbun, November 17,2011.

34 Ino 2008:34-5.

3 5 The etymology of the word yakuza isunknown. A fanciful notion persists that itderives from the numbers 8-9-3 (ya-ku-za),which form a dud hand in the gamblers’ cardgame known as oichokabu. People who believethis have obviously never played oichokabu. There are many other dud hands, most ofwhich have similarly memorable nicknames:the hand 8-9-3 was named after the yakuza, notthe other way around. It seems most likely thatyakuza originated as a slang contraction of theold Japanese phrase yaku ni tatazaru, meaning‘good for nothing’.

36 Miyazaki 2007:250.

37 Miyazaki recalls, ‘The yakuza gang was thenucleus of buraku industry. If you were shortof cash and desperately needed work, you wentto the yakuza boss…. To rise from the slum,join a yakuza gang, and one day become a bossyourself – that was a buraku success story’. Miyazaki 2007:243-4.

38 Suganuma 2006.

39 Suganuma gives his source as Kōdō-kaichairman Takayama Kiyoshi, who is, Suganumaimplausibly claims, ‘a man with whom I am onvery friendly terms.’

40 ‘“Sangokujin” label was regrettable butIshihara refuses to apologize’, The Japan Times,April 22, 2000.

41 Saka Shigeki, ‘Why I did it’, Metropolis,February 16, 2007.

42 Sakamoto, Rumi, ‘“Koreans, Go Home!”Internet Nationalism in Contemporary Japan asa Digitally Mediated Subculture’, The Asia-P a c i f i c J o u r n a l(http://www.japanfocus.org/-Rumi-SAKAMOTO/3497), Vol. 9, Issue 10 No 2, March 7, 2011.

43 Kitashiba 2003:236.

44 NPA, ‘North Korea’s espionage activities inJapan’; ‘Kakuseizai wa Kitachōsen noshikingen’, Sankei shinbun, May 12, 2006.

45 NPA 2011b:12.

46 ‘Shasatsu jiken de Iranjin saitaiho’, Sankeishinbun, March 5, 2009.

47 ‘Zainichi gaikōkan ga bōryokudan ni tobakujōteikyō’, Yomiuri shinbun, April 5, 2006.

48 NPA 2008:40.

49 ‘Tear gas injures dozens as pickpockets fleetrain’, The Japan Times, December 18, 1997;‘Pickpockets spray tear gas, 27 hurt’, The Daily

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Yomiuri, April 7, 2006.

50 NPA 2011d:3.

51 RFSS 2011:28. In 2009 Chinese nationalsaccounted for 45.2% of criminal cases involvingforeigners arrested in Japan.

52 NPA 2011b:30.

53 Zainichi chūgokujin urashakai no don taiho’,Yomiuri shinbun, March 2, 2005; ‘Chūgokumafia taiho’, Sankei shinbun, May 22, 2008.

54 ‘Sarani chūgokujin hitori wo taiho, Kabukichōhappō jiken’, Sankei shinbun, February 26,2003.

55 Ishida 2002:137-140.

56 ‘Doragon kanbura 4-nin kōban shūgeki desaitaiho’, Tōkyō shinbun, July 12, 1997; ‘Patokāosoi nakama wo dakkan, bōsōzoku 30-nin’,Tōkyō shinbun, November 27, 1997.

57 NPA 2011b:28.

58 ‘Tsuyoi kessoku to zankoku na teguchi:Doragon menbā shōgai yōgi de taiho’, Sankeishinbun, July 14, 2011.

59 ‘Politicians Attend Mobster’s Funeral’, TheTaipei Times, April 27, 2010.

60 RFSS 2011:78-80; 134.

61 Miyazaki & Ino 2010:83.

62 http://blogos.com/article/23905/

63 Following the introduction of the yakuza-exclusion ordinances the Metropolitan PoliceDepartment now suggests a fourth imperative:‘Don’t associate with them.’

64 Jōhō purezentā tokudane!, Fuji TV, August

24, 2011.

65 Limosin 2007.66 Limosin 2007.

67 The Japanese titles are, respectively,Yamaguchi-gumi keieigaku (2005), Yakuza-shikibujinesu no ‘kabe’ wo toppa suru hanasugijutsu kiku gijutsu (2006), Gendai yakuza nimanabu zeni no tsukurikata (2008), Yakuza nimanabu kurēmu shori jutsu (2010), and Yakuzani manabu nobiru otoko dame na yatsu (2008).

68 ‘Yakuza: Japan’s Not-so-Secret Mafia’, CBS(http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/10/29/60minutes/main5484118.shtml), October 29,2009.

6 9

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/07/25/executive-order-blocking-property-transnational-criminal-organizations

70 The US media is quick to see the sinisterhand of the yakuza behind Japanese politicaland financial scandals. A recent exampleconcerns the troubles at Olympus, where thestaggering sum of $5 billion is unaccounted for. As soon as the story broke in November 2011,the New York Times suggested that at leastsome of the money had been paid to the yakuza(‘Billions lost by Olympus may be tied tocriminals’, The New York Times, November 17,2011.) Japanese newspapers repeated thisallegation the following day. Yet the committeeinvestigating the Olympus affair, whichincludes senior detectives from the MPD anti-yakuza division, has so far found no trace ofyakuza involvement.

71 Miyazaki 2007:257.

72 Mizoguchi 2011a:146.

73 ‘Mafia is Italy’s biggest business’, TheTelegraph, January 13, 2012.