2012

january

YAKUZA, JAPANS GREATEST EARTHQUAKE

Firts in providing assistance to earthquaked populations, yakuza has been an undisputed player in Japans economy for years with a range of illegal activities that Japanese government is now bound to fight.

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Author Massimiliano Aceti Jake Adelstein Scilla Alecci Editorial staff Lorenzo Bodrero Manuela Mareso Matteo Zola Design InAdv Nicoletta Occella Photo credits bosbouwbeleggingen.nl TWB Photo Greenpeace Translation Orsetta Spinola Lorenzo Bodrero Contact FLARE Network 91/b, Corso Trapani 10154 Turin, Italy contact@brightmag.org www.brightmag.org Thanks to Narcomafie

INTRODUCTION
Yakuzas members like to call themselves a chivalrous organisation, whereas Japanese police and media use the terms violence group. Despite the terminology, the Japanese underworld has all characteristics to be considered as dangerous and as financially powerful as any other organised crime group, divided into a large number of syndicates. This peculiar phenomenon has ancient origins and dates back to the era of the samurai. Yet, little is left of the famous Japanese knights values. Today, the yakuza has large control over the trafficking of drugs, the gambling business, the sex trade, they provide protection through extortion, they create front companies, they infiltrate the construction business and, only until few years ago, its members had business cards and their offices would show their own boards along the streets. Moreover, similar to Italian organised crime syndicates, yakuza can count on social consensus. An extremely powerful tool, now even greater after the earthquake that shocked the world on 11 March 2011 and put Japan on its knees. Yakuza was the first one to send first aid assistance to the populations most hit by the quake, outrunning the authorities. The present dossier seeks to offer an overview of yakuzas history, values, recent illegal businesses and the countermeasures in place by Japanese police to counter-fight a phenomenon that, willing or not, is a piece of Japans cultural puzzle. The dossier was first published in Italian by the monthly magazine Narcomafie.

Lorenzo Bodrero

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The earth quaked and mafia charity arrived

by Scilla Alecci

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The way of the old samurai

by Massimiliano Aceti

The social power within yakuza

by Jake Adelstein by Scilla Alecci

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Reactors explode and yakuza pockets our money Families today, from ritualistic to fierce
by Massimiliano Aceti

Shinogi, the businesses of the japanese mafia

by Massimilano Aceti

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THE EARTH QUAKED AND MAFIA CHARITY ARRIVED

by Scilla Alecci On March 11, just hours after the magnitude 9 earthquake and tsunami leveled miles of the northeastern coast of Japan, along with the states rescue machine, another was set in motion, driven by the local mafia clans. Because of its widespread distribution over all regions of the country, organized crime was able to reach the disaster areas as quickly as the authorities. We gathered the basic necessities in each region and had them shipped to the north, a member of one of the violent groups, as the mafia is ocially called, revealed to the magazine Asahi Geino. In the Kanto region (where Tokyo is located) several oce managers collected used clothes and blankets and organized a plan to send them, he said. That day, more than 600,000 buildings were partially or completely destroyed, forcing the evacuation of about 83 thousand people. The fury of the waves and the violence of the quake destroyed the running water pipes and electrical systems in the coastal towns of three prefectures. To deal with the emergency, the Japanese government deployed its self-defense forces and asked the U.S. Army for help. But while the Japanese and American military forces were involved in seeking the lost and bringing the basic necessities to the evacuation centers, some members of the yakuza groups traveled to the emergency sites to administer first aid. According to Jake Adelstein, an American expert on Japanese organized crime, the antisocial forces were perhaps faster than the authorities, and the Inagawa-kai, the third most influential clan in the country and most rooted in the northeastern region of Tohoku, sent truckloads of supplies soon after the first shock. Blankets, noodles, batteries and other items were collected and then sorted in disaster areas often made inaccessible by blocked roads. The members of the yakuza were able to move among villages swept away by the waves through the network of tekiya, street vendors, who have expert knowledge of the terrain and are also one of the Japanese mafias traditional income sources. We had to wait for the right moment to ship the supplies, a clan member told Asahi Geino. And since they would not have accepted help from the clan, we decided to send them in the name of our

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Association of small retailers in western Japan and voluntary association of western Japan. Similar incidents were repeated in several villages along the coast. In Minamisanriku, for example, an unidentified group would leave a bunch of envelopes containing the same amount at the city disaster prevention center. The total anonymous gifts amounted to more than 10 million yen, about 95,000 Euros. Although no one knows the origin of the money, according to police there might be a point in common between the two benefactors. Both, in fact, are made up of members belonging to the Kodokai group, which has about 4000 members and is one of the Yamaguchi-gumi clan aliates. The yakuzas prompt intervention in the regions aected by the disaster to secure a slice of the business of debris removal and reconstruction of roads and buildings was predicted by the National Police, which drew up guidelines immediately after the earthquake. These included measures to prevent infiltration of criminal organizations in the relief eort and postemergency phases. The report stated that In view of the fact that following the earthquake in the north-east region there were criminal activities related to reconstruction, the authorities want to proceed appropriately with measures against organized crime. The first preventive measures implemented by the police included freezing accounts used for criminal purposes and supporting local police in the aected areas, in addition to intensification of relations with local institutions in order to collect any information about suspicious movements. Although experts agree in considering the yakuza relief a calculated move to expand its presence and profits, there are still those who believe in the good intentions of the mafia clans, whose work has often been idealized. There is a dierence between the yakuza, which bases its values on ninkyo (the spirit of chivalry), and the real Mafia that just wants the money, said Yasu, a civil engineer who works for a construction company. Those who helped the victims in the north belong to the yakuza, he explains, The idea of helping their fellow citizens is something that dates back to the spirit of ancient warriors. To contribute to the myth of the Japanese mafia, specialized magazines have been created with the use of national popular media such as comics. In the late March editions of Jitsuwa Jidai, a magazine specializing in articles and biographies on the Japanese godfathers, the episodes of The chivalrous spirit of the Fire Country tells the exploits of a mysterious clan catapulted to the north from a region of southern Japan to help the victims. There are things that only we can do so quickly, that the authorities will never be able to imitate, says one of the protagonists of the story. The truth is that after the disaster, relief work began immediately, and the people of our profession were faster than the volunteers, he continues. According to the latest official estimates, during the first five months that followed the most violent earthquake in Japanese history, the government deployed about eleven million people, from police officers to military

company. According to ocial police estimates, yakuza members, ocials, and other part-time employees now number 78,600. As Adelstein observes, these have thousands of front companies, industries and other activities, practically forming a second army. Their criminal activities range from drug and arms tracking to managing prostitution, money laundering, and stock market fraud. However, although it may seem a contradiction, even rescuing disaster victims is within the local mafias tasks and is certainly not new. In 1995, for example, after the earthquake in Kansai (the region of Osaka and Kobe), many mafia members tried to impress the local population by distributing money and food. According to journalist Kenji Ino, Japans most influential clan, Yamaguchi, which has its headquarters in Kobe, was a victim of the earthquake. On January 17, shortly after the earthquake, the Yamaguchi-kumi asked the subordinate clans to send food, says Ino. From the clans around the country, cruiser trucks and helicopters arrived daily, carrying 10,000 meals and a large amount of basic necessities. The Yamaguchi-gumi has 40,000 members and under it are a number of smaller aliated clans distributed throughout the various areas of the nation. When the news spread that food and other supplies were being distributed twice a day, a two kilometer long line formed in front of the headquarters, said Ino. Even the aliated organizations were busy and were responsible for cooking rice in parks or evacuation centers. Although at that time boss Yoshinori Watanabe himself seemed to be present several times to lend a hand in a sweatshirt and baseball cap, this time the violent groups decided to intervene with a lower profile. With the tightening of laws against organized crime and the introduction of an ordinance that punishes those who receive assistance from mafia associations, they had to seek an alternative tactic to ensure their presence in the aected areas. As the Sankei Shimbun newspaper reported, in five evacuation centers in the city of Ishinomaki, envelopes containing bank notes amounting to $300 were distributed to victims by associations with suspicious names such as

air and ground forces distributed over all the affected areas. The ocers were busy searching for the missing, disposing of the bodies found, distributing food and other basic necessities and promoting infrastructure repairs to allow continued relief. To these were added a number of Japanese and international organizations with the collaboration of approximately 400,000 volunteers, according to the survey conducted by the Association Rescue Now. This number, well below the estimated 900,000 in the months after the 1995 earthquake, appears to be due to the radiation threat caused by the reactor explosion at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station. However, the tasks for which the Japanese authorities prepared themselves also included problems related to organized crime in the case of natural disaster. During the yearly exercises held on disaster prevention day, in fact, ocers are trained to detect and thwart possible crimes committed by violent groups in emergency situations. According to an official of the Prosecutors office in the Miyagi prefecture, one of the regions most affected by the tsunami, after the Second World War, when Japan was reduced to scorched earth, the security level dropped dramatically. This, he explained, could happen in the Tohoku region (after the triple disaster), enabling the mafia organizations to extend their influence in the area. More than six months after the earthquake, there are still many areas that need to be rebuilt, and only a small percentage of the 25 million [missing word] of debris have been removed and disposed of. In many areas, moreover, demolition of buildings

deemed at risk or dangerous is still ongoing. The work on reconstruction of earthquakeaected areas will continue for years. By distributing money, they (groups related to organized crime) can make their presence felt in the region and thus try to infiltrate the work procurement, a local police ocial said to the Sankei Shimbun. At the beginning, they show a strong spirit of chivalry, and then their pretensions and influence slowly creep in. This is the yakuzas typical way of doing things. Ninkyo, the so-called spirit of chivalry that the yakuza have used for decades to legitimize their criminal activities, provides for a sense of respect for the common citizens, the katagi, who the mafia has always boasted of not wanting to involve in their business. The economic crisis of recent years, however,

may have led to a crisis of values even within the Japanese mafia, much more interested in its own economic interests rather than keeping faith with the ideals of the ancient honest protector of the oppressed. According to an influential clan member quoted in an interview in Shukan Jitsuwa, a weekly specializing in topics relating to the yakuza, the new Japanese foot-soldiers have become much pettier and more attached to money than their superiors. The Mafia leaders were the ones to think of sending volunteers to the aected areas and sending donations while their underlings only think about the opportunities for their business, he explained. In the past, our code prevented stealing from the poor because it was contrary to the ideals of ninkyo. But now times have changed and we are in a dicult period.

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THE WAY OF THE OLD SAMURAI

by Massimiliano Aceti

With tattoos, cut fingers, sharp swords and martial arts, the Japanese yakuza are better known internationally for their folklore than for the criminal aspect, forgetting that these are associations dedicated to illegal activities. The Western world has long declined to recognize the power of these organizations; however, empirical evidence shows that the latter have been active in the European, American and Australian markets since the 60s, in addition to being very active in Asian countries and Central and Eastern Europe since the beginning of the twentieth century. One of the main problems encountered in fighting the yakuza now is that for all effects they are registered companies and thus legal from the perspective of Japanese criminal and administrative law. The historic evolution of the Japanese mafia is rooted in the social banditry of the Middle Ages, through the conversion of these traditionalist revolutionaries into organized associations, to co-operation with the allied forces after the war. The first law against the yakuza is the Botaiho law of 1991 which,

surprisingly, is part of administrative rather than criminal law. It is very common to hear that the yakuza are fundamentally different from the Sicilian mafia. This clich is based on the perception that the mafia is a shadowy predatory entity, engaged in bloody battles against the State, and this contrasts with the traditional no conflict practice of the institutions of the Japanese yakuza. The Italian mafia is there but not seen, while the various clans of the yakuza had offices, until 1991, explicitly identifying them by showing the name and symbol (daimon) of their group at their offices (many of these still maintain this custom, even though the law now forbids it). The yakuza, however, is quite similar to the mafia, providing protection services to businesses

through legal and illegal intimidation methods (violent or not), organizing and protecting the markets of prostitution, gambling, drugs, the real estate market, and today also new financial markets. The hierarchical structure, rituals, and code of honor, albeit somewhat different from those of the Italian Mafia, do not differ completely; in fact, we can find great similarities. In both organizations there is the figure of a godfather who performs the same functions, family ties are fictitious, and there are rituals of membership linked to a strict code of honor.

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Gentlemen bandits. The historical evolution of the yakuza has its origins in the years of Japanese social banditry where the bandits of the era, the kabuki-mono, were mostly nothing but unemployed samurai. The Japan of the Tokugawa period originated from centuries of civil wars marked by countless armies, each consisting of hundreds of samurai. The unification of Japan and the consequent peace, however, showed the futility of the professional warrior, and the samurai in this period lost their social status, dropping from one of the highest ranks of society to one of the lowest. The samurai no longer under a patron became ronin, a maverick. These traditional revolutionaries are known as kabuki-mono, but this name has at least two sub-groups: hatamoto-yakko and machi-yakko. The rural population in many cases supported them, so that some of these bandits became folk heroes. Even today among the members of the yakuza, the image of being honorable outlaws prospers, encouraged by novels, periodicals, magazines, movies and manga. Among the Japanese, there is a very common sentiment of considering the yakuza as romantic gangsters. Even many police officers feel the same way. The yakuza claim that their origins stem from these legendary bandits, but the real ancestors of these organizations are the seventeenth century bakuto tekiya groups. In this period, the normalization of society and repression by the authorities allowed the elimination of groups of bandits in the previous century, but to groups dedicated to the organization of gambling, the regulation of local markets, and the companys management began to spread. Bakuto and tekiya. In the mid-eighteenth century, in a society still marked by the laws of the feudal shogunate, new associations made their appearance. These can be considered the most direct ancestors of modern yakuza: the bakuto, or traditional organizers of gambling, and tekiya, or street vendors. The name of yakuza was long used to define only bakuto groups, but gradually their use spread to define the tekiya groups and Japanese other criminal organizations. The two groups controlled different sectors of society and operated in the same area without conflict: the bakuto along the main streets and cities of ancient Japan, the tekiya in growing markets and local fairs. These distinctions still survive to some extent.

The tekiya and bakuto groups began to organize themselves in families, in turn organized through a hierarchical system at the head of which we can identify the role of godfather or oyabun. The subordinate members can be defined as older brothers, younger brothers, and sons. The current yakuza adopt a structure unique in the mafia known as oyabun-kobun, literally father-son, a structure that derives from these old associations. The oyabun gives advice, protection and help, and in exchange receives unconditional loyalty and services from his kobun whenever he needs them. The tekiya operated in the markets and fairs; the oyabun of a tekiya group decided on the allocation of stalls and the availability of certain merchandise, collected the rents and protection money, and also pocketed the difference in the rent requested by the authorities of the temples and shrines. It was a kind of extortion that has survived to this day: the tekiya still claim a payment from vendors for the privilege of opening their stalls. Unlike bakuto, which is mainly devoted to the organization of gambling, the tekiya also organized legal work, so that the feudal authorities granted great power to the leaders of these groups, and in the year 1740 they received official recognition of their status. The government, to reduce tekiya fraud and to prevent unrest and conflict between various groups, appointed a number of oyabun as supervisors of the activities, to whom was guaranteed the dignity of having one surname and two swords, symbols of a status very close to that of the samurai. Thanks to this recognition, tekiya groups began to flourish and expand throughout Japan. Despite the legitimacy obtained, these groups included a large number of criminals and fugitives in their ranks. Tekiya organizations, in fact, provided opportunities of redemption for the Japanese outcasts (burakumin). Working as street vendors offered an opportunity for members of the burakumin families to escape from their poverty and their dishonored social origin. The bakuto, as was stated, organized gambling. The reaction of the authorities against these groups was initially tough. Later, however, the central government developed a more pragmatic policy of secret aid to the most powerful bakuto leaders, attempting to exert influence on them and then obtain favors. During this period, the police authorities

integrated some bakuto and tekiya members into their ranks, using them as informants or spies. The bakuto could then be developed so that some of the gambling bosses became important political figures in the economic and legal world. Some of these prominent bakuto also operated as labor brokers for construction work, always one of the complementary activities of the bakuto. There is a happy synergy between these two industries: gambling attracts workers who, after work, lose the money they just earned directly from the bakuto at the gaming tables, converting it into debt to be repaid by working at the construction sites. Bakuto also attracted people from the lower strata of society, such as bandits and criminals, as well as members of the buraku class. This class has always been discriminated against not because of ethnicity but rather due to the work its members performed. They were mostly butchers, leather sellers, and those who executed criminals and disposed of corpses, all activities considered impure. Discrimination against these people has survived until today and continues to lead a substantial number of burakumin into the hands of the yakuza groups. The Meiji Restoration. The year 1867 was very important in Japanese history. It was, in fact, the final year of the Tokugawa shogunate and the first year of the new empire and the subsequent Meiji Meiji Restoration. Japan emerged from

feudal times and was catapulted into the industrial age. At the end of 1800, it boasted a population of about 45 million people. Between 1890 and 1914, total industrial production doubled and new business startups tripled. Politically, Japan saw the establishment of the first parliament and political parties, parallel to the emergence of a powerful army that would soon invade China, annex Korea, and in 1905, defeat Russia in war. The yakuza groups took advantage of this modernization and economic development to increase their activities. The groups organized workers for construction work in large cities and as stevedores in the ports.

In addition, they controlled the new means of transport, the rickshaws that in 1900 numbered over 50,000 in Tokyo alone. Gambling was a central activity for bakuto groups, although stricter control by the police relegated this activity to the city suburbs and into private buildings. To keep police investigation at bay, many mob bosses undertook legal activities as a cover. The tekiya grew territorially much more easily than the bakuto groups because their associations had legal status. The two groups continued to be involved in politics and gradually developed increasingly close ties with leading officials of the time.

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Toyama, yakuza and fascism. The city of Fukuoka and the figure of Mitsuru Toyama are very important for understanding these connections. Fukuoka was the birthplace of the far-right movements of the time and Mitsuru Toyama developed his ultra-nationalist ideas here. Toyama was born into a samurai family in ruins; he spent his youth in the streets of Fukuoka peeling potatoes until the age of twenty, when he was arrested and sentenced to three years in prison for having participated in the last samurai rebellion. After his release, he began his political activities, joining the first nationalist group at that time, the Kyoshisha (Pride and Patriotism Association). He organized meetings and conferences and surrounded himself with men who were disciplined and ready to fight. Toyama earned a reputation as a Robin Hood by handing out money to anyone who would follow him through the streets of the city and was labeled Emperor of the Slums. He quickly gained respect from local politicians who feared him because of his constant recourse to violence. In 1881 he founded a new association, the Genyosha (Association of the Dark Ocean),

a group of extreme nationalists dedicated to the repression of left-wing movements, along with murder and blackmail. The members of this association also worked as bodyguards for government officials and, unlike the bakuto and tekiya groups, these new yakuza considered themselves the best expression of Japanese society. The association sent secret agents to China, Korea and Manchuria to organize bases for a future Japanese invasion. Toyama organized schools where martial arts, espionage techniques, and foreign languages were studied and where the notions of nationalism were taught. The people who came from these schools were the creators of the repressive Japanese system in the years immediately preceding the Second World War. From the Genyosha to Yamaguchi Gumi. The Genyosha, the association that Toyama founded in 1881, committed heinous crimes in the bloody suppression of the workers movement. In 1892, when the first national elections were held in Japan, Toyama and his retinue, with the help of right-wing politicians, began a campaign

of violence against the liberal movements, ordering attacks that killed, among others, Foreign Minister Shigenobu Okuma and Toshimichi Okubo, probably the most brilliant statesman of the Meiji era. In 1905 Japan invaded Korea, thanks to the agents the Genyosha had sent. From this moment many associations similar to Genyosha began to flourish throughout Japan. Initially, the traditional yakuza organizations distanced themselves from these groups, but then affinities began to blossom: the unilateral vision of power, an extreme aversion to foreigners and foreign ideas (liberalism and socialism), the romantic past, compliance with Shinto dictates, and the deification of the emperor were common features, as well as the Kobun-oyabun structure and membership rituals. In 1919, a year before universal suffrage was introduced in Japan, Toyama organized a new band, the Dai Nippon Kokusui-kai (Japanese National Association of Greater Essence), an association of more than 60,000 gangsters, workers, and ultra-nationalists dedicated to the violent repression of workers and liberals demonstrations. They were the Japanese equivalent to Italian Blackshirts. The Seiyu-kai Party (one of the two major parties of the time) assimilated the militarized part of the Kokusui-kai as its armed group. The opposing Minso party organized its own band of gangsters: the Yamato Minro-kai, also formed of yakuza groups. The Japanese Parliament was infested with crime bosses and ultra-nationalists who shared power. Japan, like Italy and Germany, entered a period of ultra-nationalism. In that context, some yakuza groups opened political and foreign business and other groups controlled the domestic construction market. The group that emerged in the port of Kobe deserves attention because it is still the largest and most dangerous yakuza organization in Japan. The group is known as the Yamaguchi-gumi; the leader and founder of this group was Kazuo Taoka, still known in Japan as the father of all fathers. Certainly, he more than any leader left his mark in the history of the modern yakuza.

The black market and amphetamines. At the end of World War II, Japan found itself devastated. To prevent a new militaristic uprising, the police had been disarmed, purged and discredited, and thus were temporarily unable to maintain public order. For U.S. authorities who occupied the country, the control of illegal activities was not a priority. The black market flourished and became the only source capable of providing goods to the civilian population. The State was unable to control these markets and the population, therefore, had to use the services of the yakuza. In 1948, the yakuza bosses were officially invested with the authority to collect taxes from businesses in Tokyo. Obviously there was no control to prevent the money collected by the yakuza from actually being poured into the state coffers. Similarly, the police were forced to accept the reality that the yakuza controlled the local markets. This was officially formalized by a 1946 ordinance that gave the tekiya bosses complete control over the open-air markets in Tokyo. The black market not only provided basic necessities, but also drugs. In this period, drug consumption reached extremely high levels. The cause of this spread could be found in the period of conflict: during the war, the government had produced large amounts of amphetamines to increase the productivity of workers and the resistance of the troops. Following the Japanese defeat, huge quantities of amphetamines remained in the military warehouses. It was not difficult for the yakuza to get their hands on these profitable products. The use of drugs, furthermore, had never been criminalized, and the population was already accustomed and dedicated to their use, so that in the absence of an official supplier, they had to rely on the black market. The first law that monitored and restricted the use of amphetamines was not passed until 1951. The economic boom. The year 1952 marked the formal end to the U.S. military occupation. During the 50s, the Japanese economy began to soar. This process received a great stimulus when the Korean War created a huge demand for military equipment. The Jinmu boom in 1955-56 and the Iwato boom of 1959-60 led to the development of major projects for the construction of roads, residential buildings and infrastructure of all kinds. During this period, almost the entire demand for construction labor and port management was met by yakuza groups. Taking advantage of this rapid

development, the yakuza also launched entertainment businesses, from pachinko, legal and illegal gambling, to the management of the industry known as mizushobai, closely related to the management of bars, restaurants and prostitution. This period saw a considerable increase in the number of members of the yakuza, reaching a historic peak of 184,091 members in 1963, distributed in 5,216 gangs. Among the thousands of groups that existed, a few became dominant. In the Kanto region near Tokyo, names like Kinsei-kai, Tose-kai and Sumiyoshi-kai began monopolizing the newspapers. In the Kansai region around Osaka, the Yamaguchi-gumi and the Honda-kai started to dominate the territory. The sale of military supplies of amphetamines during the occupation had created a market that was now only necessary to feed. The yakuza monopolized this market, making it one of the keys to the development of their financial empire. Prostitution also became a business of the yakuza. Traditionally, some forms of prostitution were considered respectable in Japan and were not controlled by the yakuza, but at the end of the war everything changed. Many women were sold by their own families to the yakuza, who used them as prostitutes in the city, often to satisfy an American clientele. Public opinion moved to fight this business and prostitution was officially declared illegal in 1958. At that time, the complete control of the sex market fell into the hands of the yakuza. The growth of market opportunities then saw the simultaneous growth of competing groups for control of these new income sources. The violent nature of these conflicts is demonstrated by the fact that during the peak of 1963, 48.4% of total arrests related to criminal organizations were violent in nature: assault, injury or homicide. This period of conflict determined that a group of a few associations would reach national expansion through a process of assimilation of the weaker groups through military alliances, or directly with their destruction during the conflict. Seven groups in particular were identified by police as being the major criminal organizations: Yamaguchi-gumi, Honda-kai (which would become Dai Nippon Heiwa-kai), Sumiyoshi-kai (Sumiyoshi Rengo), Kinsei-kai (Inagawa-kai), Nippon Kokosui-kai, kai and Kyoko Aio-Matsubakai. To prevent further expansion of the criminal organizations, new laws were introduced. In 1958, the criminal law was modified by introducing the crime of intimidation of witnesses, and protections were also

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implemented to defend witnesses. At the same time, more severe penalties were introduced against the use of lethal weapons such as pistols and swords and a law was made that prohibited meetings with weapons present. Tokyo Olympics, the first prosecution. In the early sixties, widespread public discontent, the anti-violence campaign of the periodical Mainichi Shinbun, and the high level of clashes between gangs brought pressure on the police to develop more stringent measures against organized crime. The upcoming Olympic Games in Tokyo in 1964 forced the authorities to cleanse the capital. The police strategy was to make coordinated arrests of members of various groups, particularly aiming at the highest levels of organizations (kanbu) up to the oyabun. In particular, the police made efforts to control financial sources and firearms. Important associations such as Sumiyoshi-kai, Kinsei-kai and Honda-kai were practically dismantled, but in most cases, the subgroups of which they were composed continued their own existence and they re-established themselves very quickly, so that today they are still active. The police action was directed primarily toward traditional crimes such as gambling and extortion. This disproportionately targeted small and medium sized groups that depended entirely on the financial resources from these activities. The biggest groups, specialized in various legal and illegal economic activities, were able to dilute the effects of government repression. The leaderships of the major associations quickly developed a system that could protect them from the frequent attacks. The system developed is known by the term jonokin; this consisted of a membership fee to be paid to the boss by subordinates, meaning that the heads of the organizations received a substantial income without being directly involved in their subordinates illegal activities. The biggest mafia syndicates obviously benefited most from this new situation. The Yamaguchi Brotherhood was once again in a dominant position, where it remains today. Yakuza and Politics. As we saw in the postwar period, relations between the political parties, particularly those on the right, and the yakuza have always been cordial and mutually beneficial. These relationships had been openly declared for a long time. In some cases, the bonds were so strong that it was virtually impossible to differentiate between the authorities and gangsters. We have examples of local bosses who occupied positions in government and even in law enforcement commissions. Beginning in 1954, the situation normalized and this type of cases gradually began to disappear. But politicians still considered relations with the yakuza necessary and useful. Japanese politicians sent floral tributes to the succession ceremonies, weddings and funerals of the yakuza, welcomed them as guests of honor at celebrations, and undertook the release of arrested members. However, the emerging political scandals and intimidation spread beginning in the late 70s, making the explicit expression of these links inappropriate. The connection between the yakuza and politics did not disappear but became more discreet. Today, the relationship between right wing political parties and the yakuza are still active, although structural changes and the more extreme activities of the yakuza have seriously undermined cooperation. The Botaiho law of 1991 seems to have written the last chapter of this close collaboration. In 1992 the most powerful politician in Japan, Shin Kanemaru, was arrested following an investigation that revealed election campaign contribution violations. Kanemaru had allegedly received illegal funds for his party (LDP) from a transport company, Kiubin Sagawa, known to have close ties to the yakuza groups. To date, Japanese politics, though it appears to have been cleaned up, continues this informal collaboration.

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THE SOCIAL POWER WITHIN YAKUZA

by Jake Adelstein

*Names of the victim and details of her business were altered for the protection of the source. It was in January of 2008 that the yakuza (the Japanese mafia) first started showing up at her nabe (Japanese stew) restaurant. They were members of the Yamaguchi-gumi Goto-gumi, at the time, the most feared organized crime group in Japan. Suruga Corporation, a major real estate developer, listed on the second sector of the Tokyo stock exchange had asked her to give up her lease and move out of a building they wanted to acquire. Tomoko Akiyama* did not want to leave. The building was in a good location, she had a steady customer base - the lease was solid. One or two yakuza would show up, wearing suits, but with their shirt sleeves slightly rolled up so you could see their tattoos. One of them, the fat one, he only had seven fingers. Theyd

order one drink and theyd sit at the counter, talking loudly, glaring at every customer that came in. She called the police who came but the yakuza insisted that they had a right to order drinks wherever they liked and they werent causing any trouble. There was nothing the local police could do. No threats were made. It isnt illegal to be a member of the yakuza, the Japanese mafia, there are close to 79,000 of them in Japan. They exist as legally recognized entities in Japan, regulated, but not outlawed. They have office buildings, business cards, and corporate logos. There are six fanzines publicly sold devoted to their exploits. You can look up the address of each groups headquarters on the Japan National Police Agency website. The yakuza do not claim to be criminal organizations. They claim to be humanitarian

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organizations, even though most of their revenue is derived from extortion, racketeering, fraud, financial crimes, prostitution, and real estate dealings, However, most groups also have internal rules which prohibit 1) theft 2) robbery 3) sexual assault and 4) dealing in or using drugs. In this way, they do not contribute to street crime and many Japanese believe that a yakuza office in the neighborhood actually discourages purse snatching, vandalism and petty crime. Many groups do enforce the rules and members caught violating them are banished from their organization. Increasingly the yakuza hide their identities and use front companies to earn their money. The two men who menaced Ms. Akiyama were employees of Koyo Jitsugyo, a front company for the Goto-gumi. Their firm had been hired by Suruga Corporation to aid in evicting tenants from the building. It wasnt just that theyd disturb the business. They started posting signs on the building saying: THIS PROPERTY IS CONDEMNED. Even official looking notices that would say This building does not meet the earthquake resistance standards for Tokyo. Regular customers stopped coming. Business dried up. She was saved by the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department. In March, they arrested the CEO of Koyojitsugyo, Hiroshi Asaji, and nine associates for violations of the lawyer laws. In Japan, only lawyers are allowed to negotiate evictions. The Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department leaked to the press that Suruga Corporation had hired them. It spelled the end for Suruga Corporation. Banks cut their funding; the company was delisted from the stock market and went bankrupt. However, no one from Suruga Corporation was arrested or charged with a crime. At the time it was not illegal to use the services of the yakuza or contract with their front companies. Suruga Corporation executives had committed no crime. And what was even more embarrassing was that on the firms board of directors were a former National Police Agency Organized Crime Control Division bureaucrat and a retired prosecutor. Both avowed that they had no idea the firm had been paying millions to yakuza groups to expedite lucrative land deals. In September of 2009, Takaharu Ando, the head of the National Police Agency (NPA) of Japan declared war on organized, deliberately targeting the leading faction of Japans largest

organized crime group, the Yamaguchi-gumi Kodo-kai, which had 4,000 members at the time. He directed all police departments in Japan to devote their energies to arresting Kodo-kai members, dismantling their businesses, and destroying their revenue sources by any means possible under the law. The declaration came from the Kodo-kais attempts to intimidate police officers and their refusal to honor the unwritten agreements of cooperation between law enforcement and organized crime that had existed for decades. The NPA began working to get new ordinances on the books prefecture by prefecture, after realizing that the current ruling party, the Democratic Party of Japan, would never enact pending legislation to create a national Criminal Conspiracy Law. The former ruling chief of the party, Ichiro Ozawa, had been very vocal about his opposition to the proposed laws. So the NPA essentially out-smarted the Japanese government and worked to get done on a local government level what they could not do on a national level. Meanwhile, the police began to aggressively target the Yamaguchi-gumi, arresting hundreds of members on every possible charge, and within the last year were able to arrest the two most powerful members

of the organization. Under police guidance, almost all banks now have inserted organized crime exclusionary clauses into their contracts. What that means in practical terms is that when a yakuza opens a bank account, he has to sign a form that pledges that he is not a member of an organized crime group. If the police find out, and can prove the association, the yakuza can then immediately be arrested for fraud. And there have been case after case of such arrests. The Japanese police are not incompetent or corrupt. They are hampered by a legal system which does not allow plea bargaining, makes wire-tapping nearly impossible, and they do not a have witness protection/witness relocation program. There is no incentive for a yakuza underling to rat out his bosses and a hundred reasons to keep quiet. The yakuza head office usually pays for the defense lawyer of their

members. Any statements the member makes to the police are sent back to the organization. If he talks, he doesnt get a lighter sentence and is very likely to suffer retaliation before or after going to jail. If they keep their mouth shut, they are rewarded with a promotion and a cash bonus upon release. While they are in prison, the yakuza take care of their family. The Organized Crime Control laws have been revised to make those bonus payments illegal but have had little effect. On October 1st, Tokyos organized crime exclusionary ordinance goes into effect that will make paying off the yakuza or doing business with them a crime. Individuals and firms will get one warning, and then arrests will follow. The police will also release the names of companies that do business with the yakuza. Almost all of Japan now has similar laws on the books. Since January 2010, under the guidance of the National Police Agency, the construction industry began taking great steps to remove yakuza (boryokudan) and other anti-social forces from public works projects and all aspects of the construction industry. Apparently, the yakuza were not happy with this new impetus. On the morning of October 12th,2010, in Tokyo Shinjuku-ku Kami Ochiai 4-chome, a gun was found near the entrance of a demolition and construction site for Seibo University. The Tokyo Metropolitan Police Totsuka PD were notified and found that a shot had been fired through the steel fence surrounding the construction site. The gun found at the scene was an automatic with several rounds still intact. Police sources believe that the case was a clear warning by an organized crime group, hungry for construction projects, that they will not be easily dismissed. Similar incidents continue across Japan. The new laws will make the price of paying off the yakuza, in loss of face and in penalties, much more expensive than the actual cash payments to the yakuza. It highly incentives firms not to cooperate or collude with organized crime, much as the revisions to the commerce law in December 1997, made it unacceptable for large listed companies to pay off sokaiya ( ) aka racketeers. After a few major company executives were arrested for giving profits to racketeers the pay offs drastically declined, as did the number of sokaiya. Foreign firms that do business with organized crime often end up suffering

substantial losses. Lehman Brothers Japan was swindled out of USD 450,000,000 after doing a business venture with an organized crime front company, weeks before the entire company collapsed. Foreign firms also lost huge amounts of money with the collapse of SFCG, a consumer loan firm that was heavily connected to the Yamaguchi-gumi, Citibank has been severely punished by the Japanese government twice for doing business with the yakuza (2004) (2009) and if happens again, they will get one warning and the police will arrest members of the company and release the firms name. The 2004 problems in which Citibank laundered money for Yamaguchi-gumi crime boss, Takeshita Saburo, an associate of Goto Tadamasa (see UCLA liver transplant scandal) forced the firm to abandon its lucrative private banking business in Japan. The firm allegedly suffered billions of dollars worth of losses. President Obama in an executive order recently declared the yakuza a threat to the national security of United States and the world, and authorized seizure and freezing of any related assets in the US. Both at home and abroad, times are getting tough for the yakuza. They are unlikely to quietly walk away with a whimper but leave with a bang. It remains to be seen how ready Japan is for that recoil.

Joshua Jake Adelsteinis an American journalist and writer who has spent much of his career in Japan covering vice and organised crime. For 12 years, Adelstein was a crime reporter for theYomiuri Shinbunand was the first American to work for a Japanese newspaper as a Japanese language reporter. He left the newspaper after receiving threats against his life and family and was subsequently an investigative reporter for a USState Departmentinvestigation into organised crime in Japan. He has written the bookTokyo Viceabout his years in Japan and its underworld.Source: Wikipedia

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REACTORS EXPLODE AND YAKUZA POCKETS OUR MONEY

How the yakuza manages the recruitment of workers in nuclear power plants
by Scilla Alecci

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If I may jump to conclusions, said journalist Tomohiko Suzuki, the nuclear industry is one of the yakuza businesses. Immediately after the tsunami of March 11 damaged the central part of the Fukushima Daiichi, causing one of the most serious nuclear accidents in history, equal to Chernobyl and Three Mile Island, Suzuki, an expert in organized crime, decided to explore the world of the nuclear power industry from the inside. According to his investigation published in the weekly Shukan Post in June, the Japanese industry was found to be complex and layered, a maze of small contractors who, to protect their economic interests, rely on organized crime and underpaid workers who often come from the lower and marginalized classes of society. The work distribution structure at the sites provides a hierarchy made up of medium and small companies that seem to escape the control of a central authority. At the first level there is the power company that outsources the reactor maintenance work to large companies (such as Hitachi and Toshiba, for example), which, in turn, subcontracts the work to specialized subsidiary companies. To recruit the manpower, they rely on temporary agencies, which are often supported by other even smaller companies. Small companies at lower levels (of the structure) are usually headed by mafia members, says B., a worker originally from Futaba, the town where the Daiichi station is located, told the journalist Hiroichi Hasegawa. If you are employed by them, the danger of the work and withholding from wages increase dramatically.Among the workers of the Fukushima plant, added B., there are many who could not refuse the job because they had been directly ordered by their boss. They are afraid. The problem of yakuza infiltration in the atomic industry has existed since the beginning of the introduction of nuclear power in Japan in the late 50s of the last century, and the cause seems to lie in the layered structure of subcontracting. According to Takeshi Kawakami, who has worked for thirty years under

contract in many plants of the country without ever having been recruited by the mafia, the power companies are used to paying 50,000 yen per day for each worker but a part of the salary they earn is then deducted by this or that company and eventually the figure that comes into the hands of the individual worker is no more than 8 or 9000 a day. Pinhane is the Japanese term that is used to indicate speculation by the contractors on the salaries of temporary workers. In the case of employees of the plants, pinhane reaches up to 93%, as reported by Hiroyuki Watanabe, a council member in the city of Iwaki, where many of the workers were transferred from the Fukushima plant, having lived in the area now evacuated because of high levels of radiation. Many of those who came to consult with me had borrowed money from the Mafia at high interest rates, Watanabe said at a recent conference. They were oered work to repay the debt. The situation seems to be the same in all twenty-two plants in Japan, but in Fukushima Daiichi, after the explosion of the three reactors, the salary for the workers in charge of containing the emergency - about ten thousand in the last six months - increased in proportion to the danger of working in an environment where the radioactivity rate remains higher than normal. After the accident, in addition to wages for work repairing the plant, workers were given a hazard pay allowance, said Watanabe. Between March and April, for a day of work, the TEPCO paid, just in compensation, about 100,000 yen per worker. However, only a fraction of that money would come into the hands of the workers and the overall figure would be reduced by two zeros. This, according to Councilor Iwaki, caused a drastic reduction in the number of people willing to work for the plant. Lack of personnel meant that the intervention of organized crime was accepted and, as they lack skilled workers, beginners were made to work in their place. Unpaid debt is always used as blackmail by mafia networks that trac workers to be sent to the various plants in Japan.

For many the only way to escape a poorly paid job in which they risk their health is flight. In fact, there are more than a few stories of workers who disappear without a trace overnight. Even before the accident, those who could not pay their debts to the yakuza were forced to work in the plants, but immediately afterward the central role of the mafia became even stronger, said Watanabe. The complexly layered contract system means that the power companies have no direct

control over the workers they do not hire directly. In the specific case of TEPCO, the company has long attempted exclusion of the yakuza, clarified Watanabe, but, because the temporary work structure is very complex, it was not possible to completely prevent infiltration. In recent years there have been several published accounts of former plant employees denouncing the abuse by their employers and the indierence of the electric companies, but employment conditions

for contract workers in the nuclear industry do not seem to have improved. Even today, the reality of the nuclear industry is that both serious workers and thugs are hired, Kawakami says in his book Chronicles of a Gypsy atom. In both cases, temporary work agencies use them and squeeze part of their salary out for themselves. According to a report by the Japan Atomic Industrial Forum, the nuclear industry employed more than 47,000 people (with no distinction between regular and contract employees) in 2007 alone, and annual turnover exceeded several billions of yen, or about 9.6 billion Euros. To keep sales growing, at least in past years, the nuclear industry has had a constant need of manpower. But the ramifications of the relationships between the various sub-contractors means that companies that operate power plants are not directly responsible for the interference of mafia clans in the recruitment of their workers and the new ordinance may not ensure the removal of the yakuza from the nuclear industry. The structure that has developed over the years has meant that large companies can justify their helplessness by citing privacy issues and other bureaucratic chicanery. So far no one seems to be responsible for verifying the status of temporary workers or protecting them.

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FAMILIES TODAY, FROM RITUALISTIC TO FIERCE

by Massimiliano Aceti

The structure of the yakuza. The Japanese criminal organizations are structured in a complex network of relationships with strong internal ties, both horizontal and vertical. The yakuza are composed of ikka, or fictitious families. The ikka (sometimes also referred to by the term kumi or gumi) are the basic fundamental units of the yakuza. These structures create cohesion and strong ties within a group and fight internal divisions. We can then define a four-layered pyramid: the saiko kanbu (supreme leaders), kanbu (managers), waka-chu (young organizers) and the layer composed of jun koseiin (apprentices). The category of the jun-kosei-in also includes such peripheral figures (shuhensha) as the kigyo shatei (brother / business partner). These figures are not directly related to the ikka, but collaborate profitably while maintaining informal connections. The hierarchical structure is very similar to the structure of a legal corporation or a Japanese military organization. The roles are many, with the most important being the role of kumi-cho or oyabun (parent, boss, godfather),

occupying the highest position in the hierarchy and managing the association. It is followed by waka-gashira, a term literally meaning son of kumi-cho who addresses the Godfather with the term oyaji, which means father. Normally there is more than one waka-gashira in an association. The following role is occupied by the so honbucho, literally the chief of the headquarters, the general managers of the various yakuza oces. Alongside the main structure is a family of roles bureaucratically called komon (group of advisers). This group includes shatei gashira, shatei gashira hosa and shatei. Within an ikka, individual members then occupy two dierent positions, one inside the ikka understood as a single group and that within the inner group. Most of the internal groups tend to be composed of fewer than ten members. Thanks to their small size, and due to the fact that they share daily business, these internal groups are the most cohesive and intimate units of the yakuza universe. With regard to the practical tasks that each role performs, we can say that the final decisions on the financial strategies of an ikka depend exclusively on the will of the oyabun, while the strategies may be suggested by his advisors (komon), senior managers and by those acting as vice-chief (waka-gashira). The jun

kosei-in are in charge of security and other small daily tasks such as answering telephone calls, acting as drivers, serving guests and overseeing apprentices. Criminal groups are actually bureaucratic organizations, but the internal bonds are of distinct nature. The bonds within an ikka are familial (though fictitious), creating the oyabunkobun (father-son) and kyodaibun (brotherbrother) relationship. It is important to note that these relationships link several individuals together rather than unite them in a group. This relationship is crucial to maintain the fictitious group cohesion vertically (oyabun-kobun) and also horizontally or vertically (kyodaibun). These relationships are established by a ritual exchange of sake in a sakazuki ceremony. The sakazumi; how to become brothers. The ritual aliation typical of yakuza families is the ritual of sakazuki (literally exchange of sake). Definitely one of the aspects that most appeals to would-be yakuza is their family factor. In fact, most new recruits live alone and 43% have lost one or both parents. In these cases, membership in a yakuza group represents the end of a search for a replacement for a missing family. They sign a father-son pact (oyak sakazuki) before gang members. The sakazuki ceremony is normally held in front of a Shinto altar and performed in absolute silence. Banners with the names of the sun goddess Amaterasu and the patron god of warriors Hachiman are on display behind

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the altar. The oyabun and the new recruits sit facing each other while azukarinin (servants, usually low-ranking yakuza) prepare sake. The sake is mixed with salt and is rationed according to the relationship being forged. At this point the participants will sip a little and then exchange their cups; the new kobun declares his responsibility towards the family. The new recruits receive the pin with the emblem of the yakuza family. A document is issued listing the members of the group, the name of family member, the structure of domestic groups, the position of each and finally the name of the new member. The new family takes precedence over the real one; the two will be separate and the real family will be in a relationship of subordination. The fictional family will take care of the real one in the event the member has problems (for example, during incarceration or illness), but at the same time the real family will have no chance of inheriting the position of member or the rights of succession. The sakazuki ritual not only is used for the formalization of aliation but also to define new hierarchical positions. There are two types of relationship in a yakuza group, a vertical type: oyabun-kobun, and a horizontal type: kyodaibun. These are established by the ritual exchange of sake during the sakazuki ceremony. The nature of the relationship is determined by the amount of sake contained in the cups. Internal control. Yakuza organizations are entities that operate in an environment where there is no legal protection; for this reason they must create and enforce their own legal and protective system. Essentially there are five basic rules that have remained unchanged for decades: 1) do not disobey or cause problems for your superiors 2) do not betray your teammates or the group; 3) do not fight with your own companions or break the harmony of the organization; 4) do not waste the funds of the organization; 5) do not touch any women members of the organization. In

addition to these rules there is a strict code called Wakame no kokoroe (rules for young yakuza), displayed in the halls and dormitories of the yakuza headquarters. With very few exceptions, these rules are identical to those taught to new employees of large companies. The yakuza require an iron discipline; however, empirical experience indicates that this ideal is far from being realized. The fact that these rules exists suggests that there are strong temptations to maximize ones own interests at the expense of the group or the boss. Consequently, one of the most important virtues for a member of the yakuza is unconditional obedience, even beyond all logic. A traditional yakuza proverb says: if the oyabun says that the black crow is white, the kobun must agree. This unconditional loyalty is rewarded with promotions and cash bonuses; conversely there are punishments for those who break the rules. Small oenses, for example, may require shaving o all ones hair, temporary imprisonment, a fine, or temporary expulsion. More serious oenses may result in a lynching (rinchi), yubitsume (amputation of a finger), hamon (expulsion from the ikka), zetsuen (the irreversible rupture of family ties, permanent expulsion) and obviously the most severe penalty, death. The ritual of the amputated finger. The yubitsume may be of two types and thus take two dierent meanings. We may define a negative and a positive reason. First, yubitsume normally is not required as a punishment but rather represents the preventive decision of the oender to demonstrate his repentance in the hope of avoiding a heavier punishment. Recently, the tradition of yubitsume has become less prevalent among the younger members, because they prefer to pay a fine rather than lose a finger. Interviews with the NPA (the Japanese National Police Agency, a sort of Japanese Federal Bureau) indicate that some members use anesthetics to endure the pain, or something much more curious, once the finger is

cut o and shown (to the boss) they will quickly go to the hospital to have it reattached. The yubitsume also exists as a positive practice, not only as a punishment or demonstration of repentance but also to solve a problem or conflict. When the practice is positive, the cut o finger is called iki yubi (living finger) and when the practice is negative it is called shinu yubi (dead finger). The iki yubi is therefore shown as a sign of sacrifice to solve a problem or conflict for which the sacrificing party is not directly responsible. This second type of yubitsume takes on the meaning of sincere loyalty, a medieval practice that prostitutes implemented to show loyalty and devotion to their own particular customer. Obviously, both for medieval Japanese prostitutes and yakuza members there is clearly a limit to the number of times that this sincerity, devotion and repentance can be physically expressed. The giri. Control within the yakuza is also implemented in less direct ways. One of these is the adherence to the concept of giri. This term cannot be explained with a single translation. In the world of the yakuza this term represents an obligation, a strong sense of respect that involves values such as fidelity, loyalty and gratitude. The concept of giri is a moral debt that is created by yakuza members. This is a concept that comes from the bushido honor code of the samurai of medieval Japan, where in fact the concept of giri represented the sense of duty towards a person. The irezumi. Another form of indirect control is irezumi. The bakuto groups were the first to introduce this practice. Tattoos from the feudal period, which were used by the authorities to mark criminals, have always been regarded as a symbol that distinguishes those who decide to leave society. The members of the yakuza are still identified by majestic tattoos. The yakuza tattoos are very expensive not only from an economic standpoint but also from the social perspective.

In Japan, in fact, anyone who wears a tattoo is indelibly regarded as bad, and saunas, public baths and swimming pools very often prohibit these people, whether or not part of the yakuza, access to its facilities. The tattoo has turned out to be a trial of courage, a conscious diversification of society. The demukai. Perhaps the most important ritual because it enhances the concept of giri and defines the loyalty of members, it occurs when replacing a member of the yakuza in the confession of a criminal act to his superior, demonstrating his dedication and loyalty. The demukai hands down the yakuza code of honor because it teaches the value of loyalty among the members, submission to their superiors and a reward for honorable action, and determines new bonds. Since those released from prison are usually promised an increase in rank, and finally produces shughi, the released members receive a portion of money to invest as they see fit. The crime syndicates interest, therefore, is to interfere with any attempt by the state to rehabilitate the criminal. Various acts in the ritual symbolize the competition between the state and organized crime. The first phase of the ritual demukae concerns the departure of yakuza members from their respective headquarters. On the day of release, the members of the various branches of the organization and members of friendly organizations head to the prison from which the yakuza member will be released. The movement is made using the organizations cars, mostly of foreign origin. The order of members in their cars and the order of the column of cars follow the hierarchy within the group. Once in front of the prison, a few hours before the release, the various members leave their cars and having greeted members of various branches and allied groups, they arrange themselves neatly in front of the prison walls. Preparation for release consists of an arrangement of pyramid-shaped formations that, in fact, represent the real hierarchy existing within each group in the organization. No one is in charge of indicating the position of each member; however, each member knows where he is placed, being aware of the position he occupies in the organization. The hierarchy of the organization is revealed formally and physically; every position has a meaning and every meaning reveals a specific role. Very often the police meticulously observe large groups of these organizations to identify members and to understand the role they occupy within the organization, because in practice the internal structure is revealed publicly. Once the gates of the prison are open, the oyabun himself, followed by his deputy, heads inside the prison and welcomes the freed man. The ex-convict receives the thanks and the promotion derived from the sacrifice performed. The action performed is very important since the oyabun enters the prison to rescue his own member; in this way, the tension is defined between the intention of the State to rehabilitate a criminal and the intention of the organization to keep him among the ranks of the association. Once the last formalities have been satisfied, the group heads outside, where the released man will receive thanks and gifts of money from the other groups. Recruitment and discrimination. Discrimination against certain ethnic groups prohibits their members from having the opportunity of social climbing. The criminal world is therefore the only way for these groups to achieve their own material goals. The strongest discrimination is directed towards the burakumin and it is no accident that the yakuza have always been organizations conscious of recruiting people from this class, with regard to whom it is still a common practice to ask the family origin before marriage or before recruitment into a company, to ascertain whether or not they belong to this caste. The earnings for a family of buraku origin are 40% lower than the national average; buraku young people dropping out of school number twice that of other young Japanese, and only half enter the university. Groups that do not hire people of buraku origin also include the police, in spite of the fact that legal discrimination against the buraku was ended by decree in 1871. Obviously not all members of groups discriminated against or disadvantaged join the yakuza, the yakuza talent scouts do not try to convince an individual because he is a buraku or Korean, or because he has no formal education, but rather because some individuals are appropriate for this work. In the NPAs 1989 statistics, 11.3% were petty thieves, 33% abused solvents, 75% had been arrested once before joining a criminal organization and 50% more than once. Interviews indicate an important fact: 60% of new members had a history of delinquency, such as participation in bosozoku groups (rigging cars) and street gangs. The yakuza talent scouts search the places frequented by these young people, such as game-centers and the suburbs. Potential recruits receive money, food or drugs for the first small jobs. Some investigations have shown that some non-ocial karate clubs and universities of low prestige are targeted as a potential recruiting ground. Also according to the NPA data, among the motivations to join is the fascination of the myth of the yakuza (36.5%) and traditional giri (29%) but the motivation that remains strong is they also consider a person like me (17%), which can certainly be interpreted as an indication of the feeling of discrimination noticed before joining.

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SHINOGI, THE BUSINESSES OF THE JAPANESE MAFIA

by Massimiliano Aceti In December 2006, Japans former national police chief, Hiromitsu Suganuma, interpreting ocial statistics, stated that the total amount of annual financial income of the largest boryokudan group, the Yamaguchi-gumi was 8,000 billion yen (about 61 billion Euros), an impressive figure when you consider that the total annual income of the Toyota Group, world leader in the automotive market was 10,000 billion yen (76 billion). Within the yakuza organizations, all economic activities from which the members receive money are known collectively under the name of shinogi. The primary activity is definitely drug tracking (35% of the total) followed by the traditional occupation of gambling (17%) and from extortion and protection activities (including prostitution and the practice of minbo, 9 %). These three activities occupy more than 60% of total profits. The traditional function of dispute resolution remains constant (7%) which, though a not very profitable activity, continues to be practiced. The yakuza have extended the field of activity in the world of finance and construction. Three percent of the revenue generated by the activities of the sokaiya-yakuza, real professional criminals insinuating themselves into the boards of companies, influencing decisions. Todays yakuza not only operate in the illegal market today but also in the legal market (20% of revenue). However, we must always bear in mind that the legal activities are always carried out with not entirely orthodox methods. Drug and tracking routes. During the thirties and to the mid-forties, Japan adopted a twosided policy in the management of drugs. In the national territory, the use of narcotics was absolutely forbidden while in the occupied territories the opium trade was seen as a source of revenue and a way to keep the occupied population docile. The industry was legal and controlled by the government but at the same time, the yakuza controlled the distribution and supervision of the rooms where this substance was consumed. To maintain a population docile, a narcotic substance was necessary, but to keep a population active and productive a stimulant was necessary. In Japan, opium was therefore illegal, but at the same time the sale of amphetamines was legal. The first product launched in the Japanese market was Hiropon, sold in the form of

ampoules containing injectable liquids or pills. The government advertised the use of the substance as a miraculous panacea that could be used to treat many illnesses from low blood pressure to obesity. We must consider that this is a period of strong industrial growth and military preparedness. The military and industrial application of this substance was instrumental in increasing the resistance of the troops and workers before and during the war. At the end of the war, large quantities of amphetamines packaged for military use were poured into the black market run by the yakuza. In 1948 the government ocially began to consider the dangers of drugs, and reduced the concentration of active ingredient in the products for sale, but kept them legal. Only in 1951 was the prohibition of amphetamines enacted into law (Kakuseizai Torishimari I) and in 1953 a real information campaign about the dangers of the substance began. Thanks to this law, in 1954 a rapid decline began in the consumption of amphetamines in 1957, and this epidemic could be considered resolved. A second outbreak of amphetamines began in the seventies, to reach its peak in the mid eighties, but this time the yakuza were not limited to the control and management of the market, but they themselves promoted consumption. It all started in Osaka, where many workers engaged in construction for World Expo 1970 were taught the use of this substance to withstand hard work. With the beginning of the twenty-first century law enforcement and drug seizures of amphetamines have intensified, but their consumption remains wide-spread. The quality of drugs sold is very high; drugs in Japan are usually cut with other substances. Local production is non-existent due to the strong control over the basic substances in production and because of the price competitiveness of imported products. Until the 80s most of the import of

amphetamines came from Korea (79%) and in small part from Taiwan (21%), following the repression carried out by the Korean authorities before the Olympic Games in Seoul (1988) the import axis has shifted mainly on Taiwan (78%) and to a lesser extent from Korea (11%). In the 90 years further changes were made to the import route, turning to China (69%) and North Korea (31%). The diplomatic problems with North Korea and the eective embargo on products from this country forced the yakuza to rely almost entirely on the Chinese market in 2003 so that 88% of the meta-amphetamines imported came from China, including Hong Kong. Lately it seems that the Japanese yakuza and Chinese triads not only work together but are allied in a joint venture involved in the sale of heroin. The pacts are clear: the substance is forbidden to be sold in Japan, but at the same time the use of ports is allowed for loading the goods to be distributed in Europe and America. This joint venture seems to have had important repercussions. The use of Japanese ports as a transit point for heroin destined for markets in Europe and America seems to have been reciprocated by the possibility to use the China-Japan-Canada route (through Canadian ports, the Chinese triads are very active in Canada ) for import into Japan of not only meta-amphetamines (62% of seizures of the substance comes from Canada) but also of cannabis (58% of seizures of the substance comes from Canada) and in recent years of MDMA (methylenedioximetanphetamine, better known as ecstasy), a drug on the rise among young Japanese. Even in this case 54% of seizures are of Canadian origin. When the venture is called pachinko. Gambling has long been illegal in Japan, although it has always been and still is widely practiced by the Japanese. The participation of the yakuza in the management of gambling in

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by the procurer (pinhan) before paying the worker. In general, this payment is approximately 15% of wages earned. Prostitution, the sex trade and tracking. Prior to enactment of the baishun boshi ho law of 1956, prostitution was legal in Japan. For a long time in Japanese history, legislators have encouraged a system of legalized prostitution based on licensing. This happened not only to safeguard public order but also to keep a check on population; the brothels being the resources to obtain information on citizens activities. Until 1956 this business was not directly controlled by the yakuza. This does not mean that it did not need the security services provided by these organizations. After 1956 the situation became more complex. The Japanese prostitution prevention law was seen as a kago-ho (a bamboo law), a law full of loopholes. Article 2 of the Act of 1956 defines prostitution as a sexual act in exchange for compensation or promise of reward. This means that any other service that excludes sexual vaginal penetration is not covered by this law. Consequently, Japan has developed an extensive legal industry that is dedicated to sexual services, known as soapland. In this industry naked women completely covered with soap massage clients with their bodies; some centers and beauty shops oer massage services in this type of masturbation. It is unlikely that the yakuza are directly involved in this business. There are two areas of the sex industry that are monopolized by the yakuza. These are club meetings, the management of foreign prostitution and street prostitution. Another activity is the organization of trips for sexual purposes. The explosion of the tourism industry in the late 60s, thanks to a strong currency, allowed the Japanese to travel as never before in their history. The Japanese thus began organizing trips for sexual purposes. Probably it was the Japanese who invented this type of practice, meticulously organizing it. The yakuza were directly responsible for the development of this type of industry. Taipei, Seoul, Manila and Bangkok began to be visited by yakuza organizations in charge of travel for the Japanese. From the same localities women were imported to be employed in street prostitution, a growing number of them Chinese. The international tracking of human beings is not new to the yakuza, and is also rooted in the Second World War, recording its boom the 90s, with the outbreak of the Nippon economy. It is estimated that today there are at least 100,000 foreigners involved in prostitution in Japan, a lucrative business if you consider that a sexual performance with a prostitute in Japan costs a minimum of 300 Euros and then, doing a calculation on 100,000 foreign prostitutes, the turnover is roughly 7.3 billion Euros. Assuming then that a future prostitute can cost as little as $300 in her home country and once arrived in Japan can be sold for about 30,000 Euros, the yakuza gain from this kind of business turns out to be very high. The minbo involves extortions of all kinds. Minj kainyu boryoku, literally violent intervention in civilian aairs, is abbreviated minbo. There are many activities that can be considered minbo, from trac accidents to collecting

Japan takes three distinct forms: organization of dierent types of gambling using cards, dice and roulette in recent times (bakuchi) illegal gambling (nomikoi), and pachinko (a type of Bagatelle-mail). Just one of the pachinko industries has developed remarkably in Japan, where, in fact, nearly twenty million people are addicted to this vice. The most recent NPA estimates (2005) describe a market that ranges from 2,500 to 3,000 billion yen, representing 19 to 23 billion Euros. The earnings are very dicult to quantify because it is an industry which, although legal, does everything to avoid paying taxes. This game is considered a gray area between legality and illegality. Players do not win cash prizes but only steel balls that are exchanged for prizes such as cigarettes, toys, dolls, etc. These awards often are converted into money by betting oces located outside of the small rooms which then resell these prizes to pachinko. The yakuza have developed the exchange of industry awards. Normally, the yakuza members come oblige winners from pachinko to sell their prize at 30% less than its real value. They then sell the product at full price to pachinko, so gaining 30% of any winnings. Japanese illegal hiring. From the Edo period, the bakuto have always had close ties with the brokers responsible for providing the manpower for large public works. This is still a traditional role of the yakuza. The construction industry in Japan is dependent on a pyramid structure in which a small group of large companies subcontract work to companies who in turn subcontract medium-sized projects to small companies. This allows companies to have a small core of skilled workers and employees on permanent contracts, which can be instantly supplemented by workers who are low-skilled, low-cost or have no qualifications. At the core of this labor market are the daily workers (hiyatoi rodosha) who find themselves at the dawn of each day in the labor markets (yoseba) of the big cities. The labor brokers (tehaishi) responsible for the supply of such workers in the construction industry are mostly yakuza themselves. The workers wages are paid mostly to the procurer of labor, rather than to the worker himself. From this amount, tax is deducted

fictitious credits to the management of corporate failures. Under Japanese law only lawyers are authorized to collect the debts. However, the slowness of the process and the costs of a lawyer very often suggest to creditors the use other means of collection. The commission that the yakuza requires for this type of service is 50% to which are added other expenses, of which the best known is ashidai (literally fee for the legs). As a result, most of the money collected often goes to the pockets of collectors rather than to the creditor. However, 30% recovery of a debt is better than not recovering 100%. Another recent development in the activities of the yakuza in which the victims are ordinary citizens is the business of the territory or jiage predation. This practice refers to forcing small owners who own adjacent land to sell or forcing tenants to give up the apartment in which they live. Many small lots of adjacent land will form a larger and more financially lucrative one. The management of financial failures (tosan seiri) is one of the most sought-after and advanced techniques through which the yakuza obtain revenue. When a company goes bankrupt in Japan, the legal mechanism for satisfying the various creditors can take many years and the amount of debt repaid is often a small percentage of the amount due. Creditors, therefore, find it convenient to sell their debt to a specialist in financial management failures (tosan seiri) even for just 5% of the amount due. On the other hand, some managers may decide to make use of the yakuza to prevent attacks by creditors. The two most important things for the management of a financial failure are speed of action and the accumulation of more debt than other creditors. The seriya identifies a company in bankruptcy and settles it by providing short term financial support. In this way a seriya can force the companys chairman to sign a document that will allow the seriya to possess the books, the company symbols and the contracts.

At this point the seriya can create bills and other documents in his favor. Once the company fails, it is important to quickly collect the company credits before the other creditors. Timing is therefore crucial, because the bankrupt company is appointed a guarantor by the bankruptcy court (kanzainin) which is usually the largest creditor of the company. The seriya, being the biggest, will then oversee the administration in charge of managing the payment of debts. The yakuza have specialized in this field. Legitimate business and brothers in business. With the increased repression of the traditional activities of the yakuza, there was a progressive increase in legal activities. Criminal organizations have begun to consider it beneficial to establish legitimate sources of income to reduce the risk of seizure and to mitigate other unsafe sources often linked to illegal activities. Above all, the yakuza have moved in the management of estates, finance, English language schools,

private hospitals and hotels. In short everything that can provide a legitimate source of money. The business office does not accept this invasion willingly, however, because the yakuza often use the old ways of intimidation in the business office. They have also developed new figures as brothers in business, the kigyo shatei. The kigyo shatei are businessmen who are not formally members of organizations but are using the yakuza affiliation with these groups to be more competitive in the market. These people are also members of the organizations official yakuza, or alternatively may be simple businessmen who have developed a very close relationship (almostsiblings) with the leaders of yakuza organizations with the intent of increasing their business. Obviously this development causes new problems to the police in identifying criminals. These employees, in fact, show business and its ties with associations through tattoos or the style and behavior typical of the yakuza.

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