The Crime Book

158

acted as shop fronts to conceal

their racketeering. They also began

to bribe police so that they would

turn a blind eye to their crimes.

In 1915, the Yamaguchi-gumi

Yakuza syndicate emerged from a

dockworkers’ union in Kobe on

Honshu island. It rose to power in

the post-war period, and profited

from a growing black market. The

Yamaguchi-gumi eventually

became the largest and most

influential Yakuza syndicate,

involved in prostitution rackets,

narcotics trafficking, gambling,

arms dealing, and bribery.

The rise of the Yamaguchi-gumi

is largely attributed to the leadership

of the third oyabun, Kazuo Taoka,

who between 1946 and 1981

transformed it into the world’s

largest criminal gang.

When Taoka died in 1981 and

underboss Kenichi Yamamoto also

died before he could take over, the

syndicate underwent a bloody

succession crisis. Hiroshi

Yamamoto followed Taoka as

temporary oyabun and Masahisa

Takenaka became his underboss.

However, when Takenaka was

elected oyabun by a council of

senior Yamaguchi-gumi members,

THE YAKUZA

Hiroshi Yamamato split from the

Yamaguchi-gumi to form the

Ichiwa-kai syndicate, taking 3,000

members with him. In January 1985,

Yamamato sent a team of assassins

to the home of Takenaka’s girlfriend

and gunned down both Takenaka

and his underboss. This was the

beginning of what later became

known as the Yama-Ichi War.

Swearing vengeance, the

Yamaguchi-gumi sought to wipe out

the Ichiwa-kai. After four years and

more than 200 gunfights, the

Yamaguchi-gumi finally beat their

rivals into submission. A peace was

moderated by the respected oyabun

of the Inagawa-kai syndicate and

the remaining Ichiwa-kai were

allowed to rejoin the Yamaguchi-

gumi. However, the war left the

victors devastated. Many prominent

Yamaguchi-gumi members were

imprisoned and 36 Yakuza members

had died in the conflict. The

Japanese media provided extensive

coverage of the conflict and kept a

running tally of the body count.

Rival gang

The second-largest Yakuza

syndicate is the Sumiyoshi-kai,

which was founded in 1958.

Unusually for the Yakuza, this

confederation of smaller groups,

is less hierarchical than the

Yamaguchi-gumi syndicate and has

a less centralized leadership. The

syndicate does have a nominal

head, however, called Isao Seki. He

was arrested in 2015 and received

a suspended one-year jail sentence

for election-law violations.

The Sumiyoshi-kai set up front

companies – including real estate

businesses – in Tokyo, which

operated legitimately before

turning to extortion and

Mobs are legal entities here.

Their fan magazines and

comic books are sold in

convenience stores, and

bosses socialize with prime

ministers and politicians.

Jake Adelstein

Kenichi Shinoda On 29 July 2005, the oyabun^

of the Yamaguchi-gumi, Kenichi

Shinoda assumed leadership

of the syndicate after Yoshinori

Watanabe, the fifth oyabun,

unexpectedly retired. Shinoda

is most notable for expanding

the organization’s influence

into Tokyo.

He began his criminal career

in 1962 in a gang affiliated to the

Yamaguchi-gumi. When the gang

was dismantled in 1984, Shinoda

worked with friend and Yakuza

associate Kiyoshi Takayama, to

establish a successor organization

called Kodo-kai. Shinoda’s modest

demeanour – he famously took

the train to his induction

ceremony rather than arriving

by chaffeur-driven limousine –

conceals his capacity for

violence; in the 1970s, he was

sentenced to 13 years in jail for

murdering a rival oyabun with

a samurai sword.

Shinoda was jailed for

firearms offences in 2005 and

released in 2011. In September

2015, in a bid to consolidate his

leadership, he expelled

thousands of Yamaguchi-gumi

for showing him disloyalty; they

promptly formed a new gang.

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159

threatening their clients. Bitter

rivals of the Yamaguchi-gumi, the

two syndicates share a history of

fierce conflict. In February 2007, this

conflict nearly became an all-out

turf war following the assassination

of Ryoichi Sugiura, a senior member

of a Sumiyoshi-kai affiliate.

Business involvement

The corrosive influence of the

Yakuza has demonstrably affected

both the entertainment business

and the sporting arena – including

sumo wrestling and the Pride

Fighting Championships, a martial

arts organization that held popular

televised competitions from 1997 to

2007. In 2003, Australian martial
      arts manager Miro Mijatovic was
      abducted by an affiliate of the
      Yamaguchi-gumi syndicate. He was
      threatened with execution unless he
      signed a contract transferring the
      management of his world-class
      fighters to the Yakuza group.
      Mijatovic complied but later turned
      informant and told the police how
      the Yakuza had paid his fighters to
      fix fights by injuring themselves.
      The Yakuza have been involved
      in the entertainment industry since
      the end of World War II, running
      talent agencies in order to extort
      money from celebrities. In 2011,
      the Tokyo Metropolitan Police
      Department revealed that a popular
      TV presenter, Shinsuke Shimada,
      had close connections to the
      Yakuza. Shimada was forced to
      resign, and the case led to a series
      of anti-Yakuza laws, such as the
      revised Organized Crime Group
      Countermeasures Law. This made it
      legal to arrest anyone believed to be
      involved in gang activities if he or
      she made unreasonable or illegal
      demands towards ordinary citizens.
      Japanese author Tomohiko
      Suzuki, who worked undercover at
      the Fukishima nuclear power plant

ORGANIZED CRIME

shortly after the triple-meltdown

in March 2011 – claimed that the

Yakuza were heavily involved in

the Tokyo Electric Power Company

(Tepco), which operated the

nuclear plant. Suzuki asserted

that Tepco went to elaborate

lengths to mask safety violations

at the Fukishima plant, doctoring

film footage of broken pipes and

other neglect to avoid having to

spend money on maintenance.

Shrinking membership

Internecine violence and serious

crackdowns on the Yakuza saw

membership decline by 14 per cent

between 1991 and 2002. Even as

its membership continued to

shrink, the Yakuza strove to assert

their presence: in 2010, lawyer

Toshiro Igari, a fierce anti-Yakuza

crusader, was found dead in his

Manila vacation home with his

wrists slashed. Many believed that

his death was a Yakuza hit staged

to look like a suicide.

In September 2016, Japanese

police arrested nearly 1,000 Yakuza

members, greatly depleting their

manpower and funds. Crucially, this

action also halted an imminent war

between rival syndicates, which

authorities feared would outdo the

bloody carnage unleashed by the

Yama-Ichi War. ■

To get your whole

body tattooed, you

need endurance.

Horizen

Yakuza tattoos

The unique Japanese form of

tattooing known as irezumi

began as early as the

Paleolithic period. Over time,

tattoos became associated

with criminality. Starting in

the Kofun period (250–538 ce),

convicts were marked with

tattoos to indicate both the

nature and number of their

crimes. From 1789 to 1948,

tattoos were outlawed in

Japan, but the Yakuza showed

their contempt for the law by

having their entire bodies

tattooed. In keeping with

traditional irezumi, the Yakuza

have their tattoos completed

tebori (by hand), via a steel

spike attached to a rod. The

process is slow and painful

• the colour red is created from
  toxic iron sulphate which
  causes illness – and a full body
  tattoo takes years to complete.
  The ability to endure this
  suffering is proof of toughness,
  while the financial cost
  demonstrates wealth. Since
  tattoos are connected so
  strongly with organized crime
  in modern Japan, people with
  them are frequently forbidden
  from using fitness centres and
  bath houses. The mayor of
  Osaka even pioneered a 2012
  campaign to have companies
  dismiss tattooed employees.

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